Install Issues

[Crazy8]

Ok I just tried many times to install BT2 onto an external wd 160GB drive. I have fallowed the guide on the offensive-security site about 4 times and one other guide that I cant find the link for that just had you make one partition and used mke2fs instead of mkfs. Anyway when I boot up all the text starts to roll down the terminal screen and the bottom says this.


"RAMDISK: Couldnt find valid ramdisk image starting at 0."
"VFS: cannot open root device "811" or unknown-block(8,17)"
"Please append a correct "root=" boot option."
"Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(8,17)"


Other then that everything else looks ok. So whats the problem and how do I fix it?

I also noticed when I tried to do everything in the first guide and try to set the filesystem for /dev/sdb3 it would say that it doesnt exist. Any ideas how to get this all up and running? Incase any of you need to know im only puttin BT2 onto a 5GB partition.

[Crazy8]

Has anyone ever seen this or any idea how I need to go about fising it?

Thank you

[Crazy8]

Are there any other really good security based distros other then knoppix std or is backtrack pretty much the only one?

[Crazy8]

Ok over the weekend I have attempted MANY times to get backtrack 2 onto my hard drive and still no luck and still getting the booting issue that I posted in my first post. Is there another way like to possably put the image onto the drive and go about it that way?

Any ideas at all? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Budh.nop]

Hi,
First of all, whats your current HD setup.
the error that says "Please append a correct "root=" boot option." that meens you probably didnt do it correctly.

Please post the fdisk -l output
post your lilo.conf output as well.

Thanks

[Crazy8]

Well my hd setup was like this

part.1 50M (Linux) this partition was set to boot (*)
part.2 512M (Linux Swap)
part.3 4000M (Linux)

Well after doing some research and this not working no matter how many times I tried I found out that there is a flaw with the BT2 graphical installer and does not put some things onto the drive. There is a document on how to use the folders in the ISO to install BT2 to a thumbdrive which I am fallowing even though Im doing it on a HD.

I am fallowing this document (change the "$$" to "tt") h$$p://backtrack.offensive-security.com/index.php?title=Howto
But I am taking a few extra steps to see if I can get this working. Here is what I am going to do when I get home from work.

1) I have already edited the bootinst.sh file in /boot. I changed the TARGET=""
MBR="" to read as TARGET="/mnt/sdb" MBR="/mnt/sdb1" since me default it wanted to use hda.

2) I will then make a new ISO with my changes to that file and burn a new CD with the image.

3) I will then boot the cd and run fdisk /dev/sdb and create a single 4000M partition.

4) I will then cp /boot and /bt onto the drive from the cd

5) After that then run startx to boot into BT2 and I will finish off by doing the GUI Installer.


This should work in theroy. So that is my plan as of now .
Once I get home I will still post that info for you.

[Budh.nop]

1st. There's no "flaw" in the GUI installer.
2nd. you have your 3 partition (as you say)

fdisk -l should give you something like this
/dev/sda1 * linux 83
/dev/sda2 swap 82
/dev/sda3 linux 83


nothing should be mounted : type mount to make sure.... umount anything that has /dev/sda*

from there... you should format the 3 drives
mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda1
mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda3
mkswap /dev/sda2
swapon /dev/sda2


from there
bt ~ # cd /mnt
bt mnt # mkdir boot
bt mnt # mkdir bt2f
bt mnt # mount /dev/sda1 boot
bt mnt # mount /dev/sda3 bt2f


and then using the installer
Source (BackTrack CD): <leave this blank>
Install BackTrack to: /mnt/bt2f
Write MBR to: /dev/sda
Install



Its very easy...

[Crazy8]

Ok I will try your way first when I get home and see what happens. Also now that we are talking about partitions one other odd thing I noticed a few times when making my partitions is I would mkfs.ext3 on partition 3 and the system would not even see that partition. Anyway before I go on with all of this I will try what you recomended once I get home (about 5 CST) and see how it goes. Thank you for your help.

[Crazy8]

Well I tried what you recomended. When I get as far as doing the mkfs commands everytime I try it I get the menu you would get is you had typed in "m" so for some reason this method isnt working. Any ideas?

[Budh.nop]

Well I tried what you recomended. When I get as far as doing the mkfs commands everytime I try it I get the menu you would get is you had typed in "m" so for some reason this method isnt working. Any ideas?

I recommand you to log on IRC... its alot easier to go throu your problem from there