openSuSE 11.3: Kernel Update 2.6.34.4-0.1: "initrd" broken ?

**tschmid** · 10-Sep-2010, 12:57

Hi all,

I hope this does not offend if it's not posted in the correct forum, but I did not find anything more appropriate...

OK, I updated to Kernel 2.6.34.4-0.1 (desktop) using the online actualisation (Updater Applet). It installed the kernel OK, but the initrd seems to be broken: After a restart the PC got stuck just after "GRUB" and I landed in the mini-shell.
The kernel resp its initrd was not able to load from an ext4 root partition.

After lots of rebooting using the original kernel and checking ... too long a story. Then I re-did the "initrd" just by running "mkinitrd" again, after that I was able to successfully boot again.

Did anybody have a similiar experience ? Is it possible that the official "initrd" of kernel 2.6.34.4-0.1-desktop is broken ?

Regs,
Thomas

**caf4926** · 10-Sep-2010, 13:02

There have been issues with this
Keyboard & mouse freezes

Your problem sounds like a hiccup during the update process

**VVizard741** · 10-Sep-2010, 21:19

Hi,
I have the same problem!!
Anatoly

**VVizard741** · 10-Sep-2010, 21:28

Hi?
I updated to Kernel 2.6.34.4-0.1 (desktop) using the online actualisation (Updater Applet). It installed the kernel OK, but the initrd seems to be broken: After a restart the PC got stuck just after "GRUB" and I landed in the mini-shell.
The kernel resp its initrd was not able to load from an ext4 root partition.
Did anybody have a similiar experience ? Is it possible that the official "initrd" of kernel 2.6.34.4-0.1-desktop is broken ?
Regards
Anatoly

**tschmid** · 11-Sep-2010, 01:58

Hm, I did the update again on a notebook, but there it went fine; GRUB's "menu.lst" was correct and the labtop booted correctly. I wonder if the more complicated setup of my first box tripped the installation:
- I have 2 disks: "sda" (HDD) and "sdb" (SSD, later added)
- GRUB is installed in MBR of "sda"; boots a kernel located on "sdb"; root file system is on "sdb"
- So GRUB's active "menu.lst" is found on "sda2, but a copy resides on "sdb2 as well; that's were the installation made the changes
- The installation changes were incomplete (as I can see now after the 2nd installation on my notebook):
- "kernel" entry started with "resume=....", had NO entry naming the kernel itself
- "initd" entry was completely empty
-> At that time I assumed there was now a kind of a default option to GRUB; no "kernel" = use "vmlinuz", no "initrd" = use
"initrd.gz"...obviously not. Of course, here GRUB failed immedeatly with "file not found" as no kernel was given to it.
- After fixing this issues manually in the active "menu.lst" on "sda" (above is the "long story" of my first post), the real problem of landing in the mini-shell (which does not know about file system type "ext4") began.

Thomas

**john_hudson** · 11-Sep-2010, 02:06

I've now updated two laptops and the only obvious change was that the GRUB list had a changed order on the dual boot machine. So is the problem dealing with an unusual menu.lst?

**caf4926** · 11-Sep-2010, 02:57

I know the installer didn't get it right when I installed on my box and it wrote sda (first boot device) as hd1 in menu.lst

After a proper reboot my system was Jeffed. I had to boot a live cd and manually edit menu.lst correctly.
Not something your average user is likely to find easy.
I figured the problem later when I went to the Yast > Bootloader
Hidden away there the HD order was wrong, sda was in second place, so I moved it up, let it propose a New configuration, double checked everything, let it run and bingo, it worked. I mean it was working anyway from my manual edit, but I just wanted to figure the issue.

**Knurpht** · 11-Sep-2010, 04:40

I assume now, that this is happening only on multi disk systems?

**VVizard741** · 11-Sep-2010, 05:21

I am installed 11.3 only one new disk, only one system. Normally, OK. Add next 2 disks late, OK, update every 3 days, OK, update yesterday, and... crash. Only minimal Bash-like grub. First hdd 1,5 Tb, /sda1-swap, /sda2-ext4. next disks mount /home, +1Tb,/sdb +0,5 Tb,/sdc.
Anatoly