From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Jan 18 13:51:25 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id NAA06287 for questions-outgoing; Thu, 18 Jan 1996 13:51:25 -0800 (PST) Received: from phaeton.artisoft.com (phaeton.Artisoft.COM [198.17.250.211]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id NAA06279 for ; Thu, 18 Jan 1996 13:51:19 -0800 (PST) Received: (from terry@localhost) by phaeton.artisoft.com (8.6.11/8.6.9) id OAA06217; Thu, 18 Jan 1996 14:43:18 -0700 From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199601182143.OAA06217@phaeton.artisoft.com> Subject: Re: Mount root failure To: pokora@execpc.com Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 14:43:17 -0700 (MST) Cc: questions@FreeBSD.org In-Reply-To: <199601181526.JAA16683@execpc.com> from "pokora@execpc.com" at Jan 18, 96 09:26:49 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-questions@FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > vg0(VGA-Campatible display device) rev142 int a irq ?? on pci0:5 > panic: cannot mount root > > What does this mean? Is there a way around it? Can I edit the configuration > so I can boot? What do I need to do to get the system to mount the device? > Any other suggestion? It means you have a PCI video card. 8-). Oh, it also means that the protected mode disk driver can't find the root device that the real mode BIOS boot blocks successfully loaded the kernel from. Typically, you can fix this by hacking the disklabel, which must be accessible from DOS. Unfortunately it doesn't report exactly why it can't mount root (partition ID, wrong disk if a second drive, unreadable disklabel, or disklabel absolute offsets don't refer to the untranslated location), so the above is just a "most likely" guess. Can you mount from floppy? What about trying various hd and wd and sd devices at the boot prompt? (did you install on a SCSI or wd drive, does tha machine have both types of controllers, is the BIOS enabled or disabled on the controller for the BSD disk, is it the first disk, etc.). Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.