From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([69.77.167.62] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1KGZHY-00066s-Qh for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:00:28 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id E4EDDE02CE; Wed, 9 Jul 2008 13:00:26 +0000 (UTC) Received: from rabble.robbieab.com (rabble.robbieab.com [213.79.38.74]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A5475E02CE for ; Wed, 9 Jul 2008 13:00:26 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [192.168.1.71] (helo=pheonix) by rabble.robbieab.com with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1KGZHW-00006I-09 for gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org; Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:00:26 +0100 Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2008 14:00:54 +0100 From: Robert Bridge To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] VFS: cannot open root device "sda2" or unknown-block(2,0) Message-ID: <20080709140054.37ee91dc@pheonix> In-Reply-To: <20080709114846.3384.1.NOFFLE@debian107.local> References: <20080709114846.3384.1.NOFFLE@debian107.local> X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.4.0 (GTK+ 2.12.9; i686-pc-linux-gnu) Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Archives-Salt: d609f536-96bd-4851-a2cf-0454f741857d X-Archives-Hash: 4e584315156952b3a193ed46c6ced802 On Wed, 9 Jul 2008 13:48:46 +0200 Miernik wrote: > I am installing a new system with 2008.0 on an USB pendrive as the > only disk in the machine, and at boot I get this error: > > VFS: cannot open root device "sda2" or unknown-block(2,0) > Please append a correct "root=" boot option; here are the available > partitions: My experience of USB drives is that they take about 20 seconds to come up, meaning a root device on one will fail with that error message. There are (at least) 2 working fixes that I am aware off. The first is us an initrd to delay the mounting root until the USB device is available. The second is to pass an argument to the kernel that does the same thing, IIRC "sleep=30", but I have never used this particular trick, so you will want to check it. Either way, my money, based on my experience with using a USB hard-disk, is on it being a problem with /dev/sda2 not being available at mount. Rob -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list