Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 56089
(IDE)System fails to boot with 2.4.9-12 kernel
Last modified: 2005-10-31 17:00:50 EST
From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows 98) Description of problem: The system fails to boot giving a kernel panic message when trying to boot with the 2.4.9-12 kernel. The 2.4.3-12 kernel boots fine. The system uses a SuperMicro 370DLE motherboard (using 1 processor) and Promise Ultra100 Tx2 IDE controller. The panic message occurs when trying to mount the root filesystem. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): 2.4.9-12 How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Reboot the machine using the latest RedHat provided kernel 2. 3. Actual Results: System hangs Expected Results: System should boot Additional info:
Would you mind giving the panic message ? Without the text there's nothing I can work with...
Here are the last lines that appear on the console before the system hangs: ide-floppy driver 0.97.sv request_module [ide-cd]: Root fs not mounted hda: driver not present VFS: Cannot open root device "306" or 03:06 Please append a correct "root=" boot option kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:06
I know things scroll by fast, but is there ANY indication that earlier messages show anything about promise controllers ? The message indicates that the root device isn't found, /dev/hda in specific
There are no earlier messages about the Promise controller. There is nothing in the messages file either. Unfortunately I have to reboot the machine immediately with the older kernel as this is our Web server. With the 2.4.3-12 stock kernel, there is no problem whatsoever and we have no additional boot options added to the original lilo.conf file except the word "linear".
Ok one last question if you type "linux ro root=/dev/hde6" does that work ? (no need to look at anything, should work immedatly or not at all)
Same results with system hanging at same point.
The solution is to recompile the kernel with the option "Boot off-board chipsets first support" to Yes. The stock 2.4.9-12 kernel supplied by RedHat will not boot with the SuperMicro 370DLE, Promise Ultra100 TX2 combination.