[gentoo-user] Booting Gentoo from USB stick

[Jake Moe <jakesaddress@gmail.com>]

  Hello all,

I've been thinking about creating a Gentoo USB stick for install and 
rescue purposes (and, of course, just to see if I could).  I've mostly 
followed the Gentoo handbook (I used a single 4GB partition for the 
whole system, and no swap).  I've used genkernel for the kernel (so I 
can have a multi-system capable kernel).  I've gotten GRUB installed and 
working.  My problem comes in after what I believe is the init process:


Gentoo Linux; http://www.gentoo.org
  Copyright 1999-2009 Gentoo Foundation; Distributed under the GPLv2

Press I to enter interactive boot mode

  * Mounting proc at /proc 
...                                             [ ok ]
  * Mounting sysfs at /sys 
...                                             [ ok ]
  * Mounting /dev 
...                                                      [ ok ]
  * Starting udevd 
...                                                     [ ok ]
  * Populating /dev with existing devices through uevents 
...              [ ok ]
  * Waiting for uevents to be processed 
...                                [ ok ]
  * Mounting devpts at /dev/pts 
...                                        [ ok ]
  * Checking root filesystem ...
fsck.ext2: No such file or directory while trying to open /dev/sda1
/dev/sda1:
The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2
filesystem.  If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2
filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock
is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
     e2fsck -b 8193 <device>

  * Filesystem couldn't be fixed 
:(                                        [ !! ]
Give root password for maintenance
(or type Control-D to continue):


If I give the root password, I can find no /dev/sda1.  However, mount 
shows /dev/sda1 on /, and there *is* a /sys/block/sda folders, with a 
sda1 folder in that as well.  It's almost like it had /dev/sda1, but 
then lost it somehow.

Does anyone have any idea what's going on here?  Any help would be 
appreciated.

Jake Moe