I have an interesting problem. The install and configuration when great but when I reboot, the process ends at a $ prompt with an “Invalid root” error. If I reboot several times, it will just go eventually. I have tried different boot arguments but none seem to solve the problem. The problem appears to be an issue with the mirrors. The boot process can’t seem to find them. It boots in Safe mode relieable - very strange. Any help will be very welcome.
Thanks
Daniel…
What you report is contradictory:
If you had an invalid root partition it wouldn’t boot.
Failsafe is just the same really, it just uses different kernel arguments. It’s those I would look at again. It’s possibly a graphical/video display issue you have.
You can post the su terminal of:
fdisk -l
and
cat /etc/fstab
cat /boot/grub/menu.lst
well check these out too
fdisk info
Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000683bb
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 2 7 48195 fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/sda2 * 8 268 2096482+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3 269 6795 52428127+ fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/sda4 6796 60801 433803195 fd Linux raid autodetect
Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000778b1
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 2 7 48195 fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/sdb2 8 268 2096482+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb3 269 6795 52428127+ fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/sdb4 6796 60801 433803195 fd Linux raid autodetect
Disk /dev/md0: 53.6 GB, 53686325248 bytes
2 heads, 4 sectors/track, 13107013 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 8 * 512 = 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Disk /dev/md1: 444.2 GB, 444214329344 bytes
2 heads, 4 sectors/track, 108450764 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 8 * 512 = 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Disk /dev/md2: 49 MB, 49336320 bytes
2 heads, 4 sectors/track, 12045 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 8 * 512 = 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
fstab info
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3500410AS_5VM0SMHA-part2 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3500410AS_5VM0VAH4-part2 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/md0 / ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 1
/dev/md2 /boot ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 2
/dev/md1 /home ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 2
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs noauto 0 0
debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs noauto 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs noauto 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0
grub info
Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Mon Jun 15 11:25:29 EDT 2009
default 3
timeout 8
gfxmenu (hd0,0)/message
##YaST - activate
###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title openSUSE 11.1 - 2.6.27.23-0.1
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.27.23-0.1-pae root=/dev/md0 acpi=off resume=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3500410AS_5VM0SMHA-part2 splash=silent showopts vga=0x317
initrd /initrd-2.6.27.23-0.1-pae
###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe – openSUSE 11.1 - 2.6.27.23-0.1
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.27.23-0.1-pae root=/dev/md0 showopts ide=nodma apm=off noresume nosmp maxcpus=0 edd=off powersaved=off nohz=off highres=off processor.max_cstate=1 x11failsafe vga=0x317
initrd /initrd-2.6.27.23-0.1-pae
###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: floppy###
title Floppy
rootnoverify (fd0)
chainloader +1
title Standard Boot with NO Resume - Fixes boot issues
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.27.23-0.1-pae root=/dev/md0 acpi=off noresume splash=silent showopts vga=0x317
initrd /initrd-2.6.27.23-0.1-pae
Yet when I open the partitioner in Yast it reports everything OK including the raid information.
Have You ever heard that putting /boot partition on a RAID won’t work??
To be brutally honest with you, I have no knowledge of RAID, so I would have to leave this to the more experienced members here in the forum. It’s too risky for me even to pretend to offer advice. Sorry mate. Better safe than sorry though.
Let’s start first, is it a motherboard RAID (it is essentially also software RAID) or LInux Kernel Software Raid?
No, but that would make sense. Although it has no problem finding /boot it seems to get lost when it comes to / being on /dev/md0. I wish Yast was more funtional, even when I umount /dev/md2 (/boot) I am unable to modify it. I wanted to delete /dev/md2 then have /boot mounted on sda1 without formating it. Can’t do it in Yast. I may have to do a dummy install, it seems to be the only place that the partitioner fully works. I can leave md1 (/) and md2 (/home) in tack, get rid of md2 (/boot) then mount /boot onto sda1 as a standard ext3 file system. Sound reasonable?
That should do it. From what i’m aware openSUSE and most distributions use GRUB legacy which can’t boot from a /boot partition which is on a RAID partition or LVM.
I wish openSUSE 11.2 use GRUB 2 which is considered experimental though it is around for many years already.
Thank you for your help. I’ll give it a whirl.