From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Aug 20 10:16:56 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id KAA18604 for questions-outgoing; Tue, 20 Aug 1996 10:16:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gdi.uoregon.edu (cisco-ts9-line6.uoregon.edu [128.223.150.87]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id KAA18599 for ; Tue, 20 Aug 1996 10:16:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (dwhite@localhost) by gdi.uoregon.edu (8.7.5/8.6.12) with SMTP id KAA00658; Tue, 20 Aug 1996 10:16:40 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 20 Aug 1996 10:16:40 -0700 (PDT) From: Doug White Reply-To: dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu To: Anthony Monroe cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: [2.1.5-R] What causes... In-Reply-To: <199608201540.IAA07311@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Tue, 20 Aug 1996, Anthony Monroe wrote: > > I was happily installing 2.1.5-RELEASE last night from CD to my new > SCSI disk. After all the copying was done, and I rebooted the system, > I could convince it to load the kernel, but I was greeted by this > discouraging message: > > panic: cannot mount root Your SCSI disk is not the first or second in the chain. You'll have to explicitly give the location of your partition to the boot block using the new syntax: 1:sd(2,a)/kernel or something like that. > I guess I could reinstall things to my heart's content, and some > correct partitioning of the disk might cause it to go away. (But I > don't know, so I'm asking.) No, that's not it. > My main question is what causes this kind of panic -- what prevents > the kernel from mounting / properly? Improper partitioning? Last > time that happened, i just had a bunch of data disappear. No panics > or anything. (Do you need hardware information from me?) It looses track of where it thinks the real root is. This can be fixed if you can boot and rebuild the kernel and hardwire it for the kernel location (found on the kernel line in your config). Doug White | University of Oregon Internet: dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu | Residence Networking Assistant http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~dwhite | Computer Science Major