aic7xxx and ext3, JFS and reiserfs on /

[Dennis Veatch]

On Sunday 18 January 2004 02:19 am, Dennis Veatch wrote:
> I am having a problem booting with this kernel. The machine is an IBM PC
> Server 330 (dual), ServeRAID (Raid 5 with 1 hot swap) and the aic-7880
> (built-in). The OS is Mandrake Cooker.
>
> Once the aic7xxx.ko is loaded all appears fine. When it starts initrd there
> are mount error 6's as it tries with notail, etc, eventually it gives up
> and pivot_root fails with a error 2. Which is followed with a panic, not
> finding init and says try passing init=. The system boots fine with 2.4.24
> so I am sure there is no problem with grub.
>
> I have tried passing aic7xxx verbose, reverse_scan and panic_on_abort. Well
> nothing happened so I can only assume there is not a problem with
> aic7xxx.ko. At least I am sort of, kind of sure.
>
> I have tried rebuilding initrd with mkinitrd -v and the output seems
> normal. At least there are no compaints.
>
> I have replaced the hard drive, ran a media check and even low-level
> formatted the critter. No change.
>
> I have been wrestling this for several days now and well, that's why I'm
> here. Looking for the bone that eliminates the driver for sure.

Pardon the Emily Post violation.

Turns out the aic7xxx is just fine. There seems to be some kind of 
udev/devfs/something problem with the 2.6.x kernels and how Mandrake packaged 
them or boot scripts or initrd, not really sure where but it's there some 
where.

I took several of their default sources and recompiled them without devfs. By 
that I mean it was not compiled as a built-in or a module. I then added 
root(hd0,5) to grub's menu.lst and got a bootable 2.6.x system.

-- 
Registered Linux user 193414
http://counter.li.org

"Trying"? My contribution was much closer to a "feeble wave in the general 
direction of something that might lead you one step closer to a solution 
if you squint really hard and do all of the work."