Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 137523
Installer boot panics on CRC error in ramdisc decode
Last modified: 2007-11-30 17:10:53 EST
From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041020 Description of problem: Installing FC3test3 on a brand-new dual-Opteron machine from CD. After using any of the boot options, boot proceeds and panics after trying to decode the ramdisk. Here is the relevant section of the boot process (hand-retyped): ... RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0 crc error VFS: Cannot open root device "<NULL>" or unknown-block (3,2) Please append a correct "root=" boot option Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown-block (3,2) I've checked the md5sums and they are 100% correct wrt the downloaded images. I've also tried burning another CD (in case it was a media error) with exactly the same results. All options, such as 'linux rescue' and 'linux text', do this, as it seems to be in the initial image load. Also worth noting: the Fedora logo did not show in the initial boot screen. This maybe another bug, but it may be a symptom related to this one too. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Boot from CD 2. Use any boot option Actual Results: Boot panics at ramdisk unpack as above. Expected Results: Boot continues successfully. Additional info:
Memory test shows no errors, machine uses ECC RAM so very unlikely this is a RAM error.
I'd look for BIOS updates for your box. This smells a lot like a BIOS with buggy handling of the CD READ stuff.
Updated to latest BIOS (2.03), still has problem. Fedora Core 2 i386 boots up fine on same machine (but I can't find the right drivers for the Silicon Image 3114 SATA interface, so I can't install FC2 and upgrade from there).
Also tried 'linux acpi=off', still has problem.
Also tried Fedora Core 3 test 2, still has (same) problem.
I knew it would be something simple. It looks like a problem with the CD burner we're using here. It managed to burn the images badly in some way. I burnt the same ISO file to a CD on my home machine, brought it in to work and it worked perfectly. I'm sorry to have raised this issue and will now bury myself in soft peat out of shame.