Problem Installing my New Kernel. :-(

[ArmyAnt]

Hello all,

Can someone please help me out? I've compiled and tried to install a monolithic kernel so many times and I have no idea what to do next. I've been able to get past one problem but now I get a "Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:09"

What can be causing this problem? I've gone over the configuration options too many times, so I must be over looking something.

Here's more of the error message:

Partition check:
hda: hda1 hda2 < >
attempt to access beyond end of device
03:09 rw=0, want=2, limit=0
dev 03:09 blksize=1024 blocknr=1 sector=2 size=1024 count=1
EXT2-fs: unable to read superblock
Invalid session number or type of track
attempt to access beyond end of device
03:09: rw=0, want=33, limit=0
dev 03:09 blksize=1024 blocknr=32 sector=64 size=1024 count=1
isofs_read_super: bread failed, dev=03:09, iso_blknum=16, block=32
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:09

By the way, I have 8 partions and my drive is 6.xG. My root partion is hda11 and I confirmed that lilo.conf is pointing to it (root=/dev/hda11). I'm also running RH6.2

One more thing..., I've been reading and using the the help of "Securing and Optimizing Linux: RedHat Edition" for this server.

Thanks,
ArmyAnt

[pbharris]

hello,
just a guess - did you comile in support for whatever type of drive you have and filesystem? I *once* made this mistake ...

[ArmyAnt]

PbHarris,

I'm almost positive I compiled in support for my drive and file system. Of matter of fact, that was the first problem I had. I did not compile in support for the EXT2 filesystem. I've gone over my configuration options sooooo many times. I'm not sure what to try next. :-( Not ready to give up yet though.

Thanks PbH,
ArmyAnt

[Craig McPherson]

Originally posted by ArmyAnt:
<STRONG>Partition check:
hda: hda1 hda2 &lt; &gt;
attempt to access beyond end of device</STRONG>

Well that's your problem right there.

But I don't know what sort of kernel configuration option would cause that problem. Have you booted from your old kernel and made sure your partition table is actually intact? That's more the kind of thing you'd see if you had a corrupted partition table than a kernel error.

[Strike]

Originally posted by ArmyAnt:
<STRONG>I'm almost positive I compiled in support for my drive and file system. Of matter of fact, that was the first problem I had. I did not compile in support for the EXT2 filesystem. </STRONG>
Then what filesystem are you using?

[Big_Jeff Stud]

I've seen a few corrupted partition tables in my day. It sounds like Craig has once again hit the nail right on the head. The only thing I could think to do is reinstall.
It sucks but it is an evil that we have all endured

[x]

It sure seems as if your partition table is corrupt, I would like to give you a warning:
Have you by any chance used partitioning programs for Windows? If you did I'd say that's the problem, I had my part table destroyed 3 times because of that... Thank You, Mr Gates!

Unfortunately, all you can do to correct this is repartitioning, and then delete all disk partition programs from Microsoft!

[ArmyAnt]

Hey All,

Thank you so much for your advice. I will check out my partition table tonight. I once had windows installed on this drive and had a few problems getting rid of the extended dos partition that windows was using. Thanks again Craig, Big_Jeff_Stud, X, and Strike.

By the way, Strike I compiled in Quota Support, ISO 9660 CDROM Fs support, /proc Fs support, /dev/pts Fs for Unix98 PTYs and Second extended fs support.

- ArmyAnt

[ArmyAnt]

Hello Again,

Well..... I did check my partitions and they looked fine to me, but that does not say anything. I was able to boot up with my rescue disk, which is using 2.2.14-5.0

Here's what I found:

Device Boot Start End Blocks ID Sytem

/dev/hda1 * 1 1 8001 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 2 784 6289447+ 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 2 34 265041 83 Linux
/dev/hda6 35 67 265041 83 Linux
/dev/hda7 68 100 265041 83 Linux
/dev/hda8 101 133 265041 83 Linux
/dev/hda9 134 166 265041 83 Linux
/dev/hda10 167 767 4827501 83 Linux
/dev/hda11 768 784 136521 82 Linux Swap

Ok scratch what I said above about everything looking fine. It looks like I have some type of overlap between hda2 and hda5-hda11. Is this true? And if so how do I fix it? And why would hda2 be an extended partition? I never specified that with disk druid.

Thanks again,
ArmyAnt

[ansivirus]

I don't really see any problems with what you just posted except that earlier you had said that /dev/hda11 was your root and you had it pointed to that... well according to that partition list you just posted /dev/hda11 is swap space not linux native (ext2) filesystem which could be a big problem.. :)

-ansiVirus

[bdg1983]

/dev/hda1 * 1 1 8001 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 2 784 6289447+ 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 2 34 265041 83 Linux
/dev/hda6 35 67 265041 83 Linux
/dev/hda7 68 100 265041 83 Linux
/dev/hda8 101 133 265041 83 Linux
/dev/hda9 134 166 265041 83 Linux
/dev/hda10 167 767 4827501 83 Linux
/dev/hda11 768 784 136521 82 Linux Swap

You have 2 primary partitions (hda1 & hda2) of which one of them is the extended partition (hda2). The extended partition is the holder of the logical partitions (hda5 to hda11). All looks fine to me except what ansivirus said about hda11 being the swap partition and not root.

[ArmyAnt]

Yeah your right AnsiVirus and I appologize for the confusion. Just so I dont mess up again here is my fstab and lilo.conf files:

fstab:

/dev/hda9 / ext2 defaults 1 1
/dev/hda1 /boot ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/hda6 /chroot ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/hda5 /home ext2 defaults,rw,nosuid,nodev 1 2
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 noauto,owner,ro, 0 0
/dev/hda8 /tmp ext2 defaults,rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec 1 2
/dev/hda10 /usr ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/hda7 /var ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
/dev/hda11 swap swap defaults 0 0

lilo.conf:

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
prompt
timeout=00
linear
default=linux
restricted
password=&lt;mypass&gt;
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.19
label=linux
read-only
root=/dev/hda9

Sorry for the confusion earlier. So my partition table looks ok huh? What could possibly be the problem? I'll keep tring to figure something out.

Thanks again for everyones help.

- ArmyAnt

[bdg1983]

I did a search (as always) at Google (http://www.google.com/linux) for 'attempt to access beyong end of device' and this is just one that was returned.

Turning OFF DMA on my WDC __IMMEDIATELY__ removed this problem (attempting to access beyond end of
device). However, I now suffer from slower disk access. I'm using 2.2.6 - 2.2.12. Never had this
problem with 2.0.3x

Another mentioned a problem with RAID.

I would suggest you do the same and see if one of them relates to your configuration.

[ArmyAnt]

Thanks mdwatts. :-)

I'll try "Turning OFF DMA" support and see what happens. I'll let everyone know how it goes.

Thanks Again All,
ArmyAnt

[ArmyAnt]

mdwatts the 3rd,

Turning off DMA support Fixed my problem. I still don't understand it but it works now. Thank you all so much for all the great help. Here's what I actually did:

During the configuration step I set the following to No.

Use DMA by default when available (CONFIG_IDEDMA_AUTO)[Y/n/?] N

I hope this helps someone in the future. And if anyone can explain this please do.

Take Care All,
ArmyAnt