[byers@bootp drhmail09]$ uname -a
Linux bootp 2.6.17-1.2174_FC5 #1 Tue Aug 8 15:30:55 EDT 2006 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
I am trying to boot from a backupcopy of my mainfc5
which backupcopy is in top dir of the usb disk /dev/sdc1
mounted as /media/disk-1 when in mainfc5
that usbdisk is one large reiserfs partition sdc1
1) first problem
if i use in grub.conf in a new stanza
root (hd2,0) corresponding to /dev/sdc1
then boot fails immediately "hd2 does not exist"
I also note that when booting my mainfc5
there is an early message (not seen in dmesg) something like
cant find special .../dev/sdc1
then later in the boot process it does find sdc1:
[byers@bootp drhmail09]$ dmesg |grep sdc1
sdc: sdc1
ReiserFS: sdc1: found reiserfs format "3.6" with standard journal
ReiserFS: sdc1: using ordered data mode
ReiserFS: sdc1: journal params: device sdc1, size 8192, journal first block 18, max trans len 1024, max batch 900, max commit age 30, max trans age 30
ReiserFS: sdc1: checking transaction log (sdc1)
ReiserFS: sdc1: Using r5 hash to sort names
both pieces of evidence imply
that usb disk not available early enough in the boot process
Is there any fix for this or a workaround?
2) second problem
if i cheat and copy the /boot dir from the usb fc5copy into /dev/sdb3
and use root (hd1,2) in grub.conf
then again attempting to boot from usb gets to ok booting the kernel
but shortly fails with "could not find /dev/root" and other "couldnotfind"
then kernel panic,locks up
googling "could not find /dev/root"
reveals that this has been a problem in several fedora last few yrs,
(most or all of them _not_ using external usb disk)
fc6,fc7 maybe i saw one on fc8 as well
but no clean solution, in general not obvious (to me) why it occurred.
some cases helped with use LABELs, some not. ( i tried this, no help)
some cases helped with complex(to me) mkinitrd
some cases helped with earlier kernel, but i dont see explanation of why
In my case,
the following stanza using an older kernel does boot!
but has other problems. eg networking not avail until i do a 2nd boot
I got the older kernel
from some oddball kubuntu thing i was experimenting with way back
title FC5copy (2.6.15-26-386) usbfc5 /media/disk-1 (hd1,2)sdb3 rootusb
root (hd1,2) ## sdb3
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-26-386 ro root=LABEL=rootusb rhgb quiet
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.15-26-386
this kernel 2.6.15-26-386 instead of what i use in mainfc5
2.6.17-1.2174_FC5
Is there any current advice re "could not find /dev/root"?
has anyone seen it in f8,f9,f10?
thanks for any advice
yes i know i should get f9 or f10.
but i would like to see if I can find clean method to
booting from usbexternal disk.
Jack
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