Re: [gentoo-user] Problem with new install

[Bill Longman <bill.longman@gmail.com>]

On 10/15/2010 12:23 PM, Mike Diehl wrote:
> On Friday 15 October 2010 11:40:34 am Florian Philipp wrote:
>> Am 15.10.2010 19:29, schrieb Mike Diehl:
>>> Hi all.
>>>
>>> I've never had this much trouble with a server before, but I've been
>>> pulling my hair out.
>>>
>>> The install seemed to go well, but when I rebooted it from it's own hard
>>> drive, it fails.  fsck claims that it can't open /dev/sda3 or that the
>>> superblock doesn't describe a valid ext2 filesystem.
> 
>> *All* of the drivers could be too much. There is a generic driver which
>> can prevent the "right" driver from taking over. In that case you end up
>> with a /dev/hda node and no DMA. Try to deactivate "Generic ATA support"
>> = CONFIG_ATA_GENERIC and "generic/default IDE chipset support" =
>> CONFIG_IDE_GENERIC.
>> I think it is the second option that causes that problem. However, you
>> won't need the first option, either.
> 
> I tried this, first without success.  I then ran through all combinations of 
> sda3, sdb3, hda3, hdb3 in /etc/fstab.  This didn't work.
> 
>> Instead of your brute-force "yes to all" approach, newer kernels also
>> support `make localyesconfig` which takes all modules currently used in
>> the running kernel and compiles them into the new kernel. It is very
>> helpful when you already have a good but generic kernel like the one on
>> your live CD.
> 
> I tried this, next.  At least now, I believe I have a viable kernel.  But it 
> still didn't work.
> 
>> If even that doesn't help, it might be possible that the device
>> numbering has changed and your hard disk is detected as /dev/sdb or so.
>> Try mounting it by UUID (google for it, please).
> 
> I tried this.  Only now, fsck.ext2 tells me that it can't resolve the UUID.
> 
> Here is the new fstab:
> /dev/sda1       /boot           ext2            noauto,noatime  1 2                           
>                                                                                               
> UUID=ba7511dd-a5f9-48d8-8102-cf71c08a0c7b     /       ext2    noatime    0 1   
>                                                                                               
> /dev/sda2       none            swap            sw              0 0                           
> /dev/cdrom              /mnt/cdrom      auto            noauto,ro       0 0  
> 
> At this point, I'm going to move the drive to a different port on the SATA 
> chain; shouldn't change anything, but I'm running out of ideas.  I'll also 
> check the BIOS for anything stupid-obvious.

You might also want to jump into grub's shell and look around in /dev
for devices. If they are there, you know the kernel is providing the
modules correctly. They might not be sda but hda or vice-versa. Also,
you can use lsmod and make sure.