Problem booting with 2.4 kernel and ext3

**Infohawk** · 02-25-2002, 03:01 AM

Hello

I get the following error when i start my computer:

request_module[block-major-3]: Root fs not mounted
VFS: Cannot open root device "301" or 3:01
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 3:01

What's going on? Originally, I had kernel 2.2 on my debian system with ext2. I decided I wanted to try using ext3. I used the tunefs... line. Then someone told me I needed a newer kernel to have ext3. So apt-get installed the kernel package for 2.4.17 for 586s. *That's when I started getting these errors. I've added initrd=/initrd.img to my lilo.conf.

Online, someone told me that this was happening because the new kernel I got couldn't mount the ext3 root directory. They said my system needed to mount the root directory before it mounted the ext3 module. So I tried patching my kernel with a debian package for 2.4x kernels. I installed it, but I still get the same error.

my root=/dev/hda1 which is correct.

Is the person online right? I'm a little lost here. All I really know for sure is that when i start my computer I get the above error. I'm not even sure ext3 is installed correctly.

Others tell me I need to recompile the kernel. Didn't apt-get install do that for me? How would I do it now? How do I get to login with 2.4?

Let me know if there is any information I can give you. Thanks.

02-25-2002, 07:27 AM

Yeah, you don't have ext3 support compiled into the kernel. Having it as a module naturally has to result in a kernel panic: The kernel starts and wants to mount the root partition. That is ext3. ext3 support is in a module that resides on the root partition -> panic!

What you can do to start nonetheless is to change the fs-type entry in /etc/fstab for the root filesystem back to ext2. ext2 and ext3 are compatible so that a cleanly unmounted ext3 filesystem can be handled by the ext2 driver.

Now you either compile your kernel with ext3 support, (apt-get doesn't compile the kernel, it download and installs packages) or you apt-get the proper kernel that has ext3 support compiled into the kernel. Try apt-cache search kernel-image to see what's available. Some package description should mention ext3 support.

**Infohawk** · 02-25-2002, 04:50 PM

Hi,

I tried dselecting *a "proper kernel that has ext3 support compiled into the kernel."

Now when I boot my system, I get

LILO 22.1 Loading LInuxEBDA too big

What does that mean? What do I do to boot correctly?

Thanks.

02-27-2002, 04:06 AM

What do you mean you 'tried dselecting ...'? What did you do? What kernel image did you choose. Was it installed right? does it have a lilo.conf entry? Did you re-run lilo?

EBDA=Extended BIOS Data Area

**Infohawk** · 02-27-2002, 04:12 AM

"What do you mean you 'tried dselecting ...'?"

It means I ran dselect, the package management tool for debian, and selected a 2.4.x kernel package with included support for ext3. Dselect is supposed to install packages easily and automatically.

Was it installed right?
I did not get any error messages

does it have a lilo.conf entry?
I believe Dpkg makes one. In any case, yes it does have a lilo.conf entry.

Did you re-run lilo?
Yes.

02-27-2002, 04:32 AM

It means I ran dselect, the package management tool for debian,

Hmmm, last time I checked, dpkg was debian's package management tool. Oh well.

It wouldn't hurt if you were a bit more explicit. Again, what kernel did you choose (I want the package name). How does your /etc/lilo.conf look like.

Also try experimenting a bit. apparently you have a working kernel to boot up. If it has modular ext3 support try using a partition other than the root partition as ext3. Does that work?

**Compunuts** · 02-28-2002, 12:25 PM

Dselect is the front end for dpkg.

Dselect will not make the LILO entry for you. It will just prepared you the kernel and its image in the /boot directory. You will have to manually set the entry and re-run LILO.