Kernal panic booting installed BT3 beta

[adamh128]

I followed the howto and installed BT3 beta to a USB HD (/dev/sdb3), choosing to install lilo on the MBR of sdb.

When I boot my laptop, I can bring up the boot menu and choose to boot from USB Storage device, which subsequently brings up lilo as expected with BT3 listed.

However, booting to BT3, I get the following error and a freeze:


VFS: Cannot open root device "813" or unknown-block (8,19)
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block (8,19)


What's wrong?
Any help is much appreciated.

OK, it looks like it might be a problem with the default lilo.conf.

If I boot to BT using the CD, I can go to /mnt/sdb3/etc/ and edit lilo.conf changing:
boot=/dev/sdb
root=/dev/sdb3
read-write

However, considering I CANNOT boot to the installed BT, how can I re-install lilo (from the live CD)?
I tried:
lilo -r /mnt/sdb3

but I get:
Warning: LBA32 addressing assumed
Fatal: raid_setup: start("/dev/sdb")

Any ideas?

I figured out why it didn't like /dev/sdb - because I'd changed the root to /mnt/sdb3, and /mnt/sdb3/dev doesn't have devices in it!

So, I tried this instead:
lilo -C /mnt/sdb3/etc/lilo.conf -m /mnt/sdb3/boot/map

but I get the following error:
Warning: /dev/sdb is not on the first disk
Fatal: geo_query_dev HDIO_GETGEO (dev 0x1600): Inappropriate ioctl for device

Please help?

[Primey]

Did you check the MD5 of the iso?

[imported_GONZO]

If your trying to put it on usb put the file from the iso to the usb
open command prompt
change to your drive letter:
mine is f
F:
cd boot
bootinstint.bat
and hit enter till the end.

[adamh128]

Did you check the MD5 of the iso?

Yes, it is correct.

If your trying to put it on usb put the file from the iso to the usb
open command prompt
change to your drive letter:
mine is f
F:
cd boot
bootinstint.bat
and hit enter till the end.

I'd rather exhaust all options to get a 'real' install working, rather than a copy of the live cd.

I've come across the script 'bootlilo.sh' in the boot directory on the CD. I'll have a play with that and see if I can get this working.

I managed to get lilo to work, but it made no difference.
I *think* it may be because the kernel doesn't support ext2/ext3 or USB out of the box, so it doesn't recognise my drive :-(

How can I add support for USB/ext2/ext3 either in an initrd or by recompiling the kernel?

Thanks.

The ISO verified ok.

Also before resorting to using a 'live' installation, I would like to get the 'real' install working.

I managed to get lilo to install, but it made no difference.
I now think that the problem is that the kernel does not have support for USB and/or ext3 by default.

I'm now trying to create an initrd to add support for these, but as I've not done this before it's proving rather difficult - as mkinitrd etc. are not included in BT by default :-(

With a lot of trial and error, and many reboots, I finally managed to get it working! Here's what I had to do:

1) Prepair USB HD with ext3 partition

2) Download the following packages:

packages.slackware.it/package.php?q=12.0/kernel-generic-smp-2.6.21.5_smp-i686-2.gz
packages.slackware.it/package.php?q=12.0/kernel-modules-smp-2.6.21.5_smp-i686-2.gz
packages.slackware.it/package.php?q=12.0/mkinitrd-1.1.2-i486-3

3) Rename the packages with a .tgz extention otherwise the package installer (see step 5) will not like them, and copy them to a suitable media so you can access them later from BT live (I placed them an NTFS partition on my USB HD).

2) Boot BT live CD/DVD

3) Install BT on the ext partition (in my case /dev/sdb3), writing lilo.mbr to /dev/sdb. Select 'real' install and uncheck 'restore original MBR'

4) After installation, don't reboot, enter the following at a shell prompt:

mount -o bind /proc /mnt/proc
mount -o bind /dev /mnt/dev
mount -o bind /sys /mnt/sys
chroot /mnt/sdb3 /bin/bash

5) Install the packages downloaded earlier:

installpkg kernel-generic-smp-2.6.21.5_smp-i686-2.gz
installpkg kernel-modules-smp-2.6.21.5_smp-i686-2.gz
installpkg mkinitrd-1.1.2-i486-3.gz

6) Run mkinitrd to add support for usb and ext3:

mkinitrd -c -k 2.6.21.5-smp -m usbcore:ehci-hcd:uhci-hcdhci-hcd:usb-storage:ext3 -f ext3 -r /dev/sdb3

7) We need to edit the /boot/initrd-tree/init file. Find the line '# Initialize LVM:' in it, and above this, but after the previous block, add these lines:

echo "Sleeping to allow USB init."
sleep 10

8) Now run 'mkinitrd' with no arguments, to regenerate the initrd file with this change included.

9) Edit /etc/lilo.conf, setting boot and root devices and adding a line for the initrd.gz file. Here's the one I use:

boot = /dev/sdb
timeout = 0
lba32
compact
change-rules
reset
vga = 792
image = /boot/vmlinuz
initrd = /boot/initrd.gz
root = /dev/sdb3
label = back|track
read-only

10) Run lilo:

lilo -v

11) Success, we should now be able to boot to the USB HD!

[madans]

Hello ...

I tried this on my installation of BT3 final, and now all I get is a blank screen.

I do get past the bootloader stage without any problems.

I am trying to run BT3 on a 100gig USB drive, connected to an IBM X61 tablet thats connected to a docking station.

Please help !!!!!!!

[KMDave]

Why are you using BT3 Beta? There is a final version out there.

Also the warning from lilo about not being on the first disk is because lilo thinks it won't be used if it is not on the first disk in the system since the secondary won't be booted from by default.

[madans]

Hello,

I am using BT3 Final.
Is there a tutorial on how I can use grub, if not for Lilo ?