Folks,

I sucessfully installed slackware10 on my external USB drive. I can boot
also from the USB drive, but mid way thru the boot, it says can not find
root, which is /dev/sda1. I'm wondering how? Since it's already booting from
/dev/sda1, do you guys think I'm missing some modules or drivers? Any
pointer is great help, thanks in advance.

If I boot from the Slackware CD, I have no problem seeing the partition
/dev/sda1. One more strange thing is when I boot from CD and use boot:
(bare.i/scsi.s) root=/dev/sda1 ro, it seems to ignore my root=/dev/sda1 and
go straight to ramdisk. Please help....

Eugene

Eugene Chiu wrote in <HuydnUF3i_fp1bTfRVn-vA@rogers.com>:

>
> Folks,
>
> I sucessfully installed slackware10 on my external USB drive. I can boot
> also from the USB drive, but mid way thru the boot, it says can not find
> root, which is /dev/sda1. I'm wondering how? Since it's already booting
> from /dev/sda1, do you guys think I'm missing some modules or drivers? Any
> pointer is great help, thanks in advance.
>
> If I boot from the Slackware CD, I have no problem seeing the partition
> /dev/sda1. One more strange thing is when I boot from CD and use boot:
> (bare.i/scsi.s) root=/dev/sda1 ro, it seems to ignore my root=/dev/sda1
> and go straight to ramdisk. Please help....
>
Perhaps the usb drivers for your kernel are modules rather than compiled-in,
so it can mount it once booted but not as your root? In that case you need
to either recompile your kernel with all the modules you need built in, or
make an initrd with the usb modules on it.

It would appear to me that if you boot with a kernel that is not
scsi then the scsi disk will not be seen. That is because the
kernel is booted from code that is not "in a filesystem" but is only
byte accessed from a bootstrap loader which is passed "hard"
disk locations from lilo. This allows the loader of the disk to have
raw access. Once the kernel is asked to operate, it must see a disk
file system of the correct type and a disk of the correct type for
its internally compiled drivers.

Otherwise the disk drivers have to be passed to the kernel if they
are not inherent in it. For this reason, Red Hat uses initrd to
pass the scsi or other drivers it needs to read a disk/filesystem.
The scsi.s kernel *should* work, *but* if usb drivers are not in it,
then try an initrd option where usb modules are passed to the kernel
in lilo at boot time. As I recall most of the slack kernels are
compiled with usb drivers as modules. There may be a usb kernel in
current.

man initrd.
cd /usr/doc/Linux-HOWTOs
grep -i initrd *
less LILO* etc .. etc..

The initrd thing was more developed at Red Hat, so you may get some help
at their site. There is a script for loading modules they have that may
help you. Try googling red hat initid scsi for help.

EC<:-}

MikeyD wrote:
> Eugene Chiu wrote in <HuydnUF3i_fp1bTfRVn-vA@rogers.com>:
>
>
>>Folks,
>>
>>I sucessfully installed slackware10 on my external USB drive. I can boot
>>also from the USB drive, but mid way thru the boot, it says can not find
>>root, which is /dev/sda1. I'm wondering how? Since it's already booting
>>from /dev/sda1, do you guys think I'm missing some modules or drivers? Any
>>pointer is great help, thanks in advance.
>>
>>If I boot from the Slackware CD, I have no problem seeing the partition
>>/dev/sda1. One more strange thing is when I boot from CD and use boot:
>>(bare.i/scsi.s) root=/dev/sda1 ro, it seems to ignore my root=/dev/sda1
>>and go straight to ramdisk. Please help....
>>
>
> Perhaps the usb drivers for your kernel are modules rather than compiled-in,
> so it can mount it once booted but not as your root? In that case you need
> to either recompile your kernel with all the modules you need built in, or
> make an initrd with the usb modules on it.

http://theochem.chem.rug.nl/resource...ual/a1344.html

The above is an example of the most important file for initrd. This
needs changing for booting USB modules of course. See
/usr/src/linux/Documentation/initrd.txt

initrd stands for initial root device.

You may also need to grokulate the loopback device which is
a new made mini file system on a part of the disk. You could use
a kernel that has the loopback device enabled in order to build
the initrd image. You can read about that in initrd.txt and
other system docs. in the same Documentation area do a less
devices.txt for an explain.

Of course for all this you need to be sitting on a mounted system
disk with a loopback kernel etc.. there are other ways
of doing it other than loopback. Read.

Red Hat had this all figgered out. On the net somewhere is
a way of getting the Red Hat grokulation of this systematic
modality.

EC<:-}

Eugene Chiu wrote:
> Folks,
>
> I sucessfully installed slackware10 on my external USB drive. I can boot
> also from the USB drive, but mid way thru the boot, it says can not find
> root, which is /dev/sda1. I'm wondering how? Since it's already booting from
> /dev/sda1, do you guys think I'm missing some modules or drivers? Any
> pointer is great help, thanks in advance.
>
> If I boot from the Slackware CD, I have no problem seeing the partition
> /dev/sda1. One more strange thing is when I boot from CD and use boot:
> (bare.i/scsi.s) root=/dev/sda1 ro, it seems to ignore my root=/dev/sda1 and
> go straight to ramdisk. Please help....
>
> Eugene
>
>

Thanks for the info. Working on it and will keep the group posted.


"E. Charters" <echarters@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:LZlWd.56284$kz6.1028500@news20.bellglobal.com ...
> http://theochem.chem.rug.nl/resource...ual/a1344.html
>
> The above is an example of the most important file for initrd. This
> needs changing for booting USB modules of course. See
> /usr/src/linux/Documentation/initrd.txt
>
> initrd stands for initial root device.
>
> You may also need to grokulate the loopback device which is
> a new made mini file system on a part of the disk. You could use
> a kernel that has the loopback device enabled in order to build
> the initrd image. You can read about that in initrd.txt and
> other system docs. in the same Documentation area do a less
> devices.txt for an explain.
>
> Of course for all this you need to be sitting on a mounted system
> disk with a loopback kernel etc.. there are other ways
> of doing it other than loopback. Read.
>
> Red Hat had this all figgered out. On the net somewhere is
> a way of getting the Red Hat grokulation of this systematic
> modality.
>
> EC<:-}
>
> Eugene Chiu wrote:
>> Folks,
>>
>> I sucessfully installed slackware10 on my external USB drive. I can boot
>> also from the USB drive, but mid way thru the boot, it says can not find
>> root, which is /dev/sda1. I'm wondering how? Since it's already booting
>> from /dev/sda1, do you guys think I'm missing some modules or drivers?
>> Any pointer is great help, thanks in advance.
>>
>> If I boot from the Slackware CD, I have no problem seeing the partition
>> /dev/sda1. One more strange thing is when I boot from CD and use boot:
>> (bare.i/scsi.s) root=/dev/sda1 ro, it seems to ignore my root=/dev/sda1
>> and go straight to ramdisk. Please help....
>>
>> Eugene
>

E. Charters wrote:

> http://theochem.chem.rug.nl/resource...ual/a1344.html
>
> The above is an example of the most important file for initrd. This
> needs changing for booting USB modules of course. See
> /usr/src/linux/Documentation/initrd.txt
>
> initrd stands for initial root device.

Hi,

Small error noted;

initrd - boot loader initialized RAM disk
Semantics!

See the above mentioned initrd.txt file. Or Man initrd
--
Regards and Godspeed,
Gary

The magic is in the Magician not the wand!

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Same problem here.

I believe the solution involves loading the module usb-storage
before mounting /.

If you boot from the 10.1 install CD, an ls will reveal the usb-module is
loaded. Apparently this is why we can install but not boot afterwards.

Perhaps the solution is right there in the install CD.


--
John & Sue
'04 GMC Safari
'99 Starcraft Starflyer (ShuttleCraft)
Oklahoma City