Update Re: [Techtalk] RH9 upgrade problem

[EevaJärvinen]

On Tue, Jun 24, 2003 at 12:23:06PM -0700, Conni wrote:
> Here's the last 5 lines before it freaks out and gives up:
> mount error 22 mounting ext3
> pivotroot: pivot_root (/sysroot, /sysroot/initrd) failed: 2
> umount /initrd/proc failed: 2
> freeing unused kernel memory: 132K freed
> kernel panic: no init found.  try passing init= option to kernel.

This looks a lot like my playing with grub to change /boot into it's
own partition; before I worked out what's what.

> The config (pressing 'e' in the loader screen) shows this:
> root (hd0,0)
> kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/
> initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img

It looks to me (but I might be wrong; I'm not very experienced in
this) that your /boot has gone wrong, somehow, and your kernel can't
find the root partition (which has init on it, among the rest of your
stuff).  Grub can find your kernel, however.  I wonder if changing the
"root=LABEL=/" would help, maybe to "root=/dev/hdsomething"?  The
assumption behind this logic being that if the label on your root
partition is mangled, the kernel can't find it.  Specifying the
partition directly should bypass that.

I'd try `rescue' from the installation cd, and then mounting the root
filesystem, checking its label (e2label) and seeing if /boot is on
root partition, or if it's somewhere else.

How did you install your system?  I tried upgrading from 7.2 to 9 but
ended up formatting my root partition (I keep /home on a different
partition; all tarballs and extra RPMs reside on /home as well) and
installing 9 on a freshly formatted partition.  The upgrade kind of
worked, but it seemed broken and I didn't want to spend the time
figuring all of it out.  Easier to install "cleanly".  Oh, and this is
a laptop.  Better part of a day spent, again.  But it does seem I'm
learning to be slightly distrustful on "upgrades" and just "install"
instead.  Install took far less time that upgrading, BTW.


hope it works out,
Eeva

-- 
...women are not obedient, chaste, scented, and exquisitely apparelled by
nature.  They can only attain these graces, without which they may enjoy 
none of the delights of life, by the most tedious discipline.

                                                  V. Woolf, Orlando