Bug#438594: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown-block

[Paul <lists@pote.com>]

Package: linux-image-2.6.18-5-486
Version: 2.6.18.dfsg.1-13etch1
Severity: critical
Justification: breaks the whole system


After installing the new linux-image package and rebooting, the boot process failed with:

RAMDISK: compressed image found at block 0
RAMDISK: incomplete write(-1 != 32768) 4134304
VFS: cannot open root device "/dev/hda2" or unknown-block(0,0)
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: unable to mount root fs or unknown-block(0,0)

I appended ramdisk=65536 to grub's root line, and that got rid of the RAMDISK errors, but the boot continues to fail with the same VFS error.

Linux-image-2.6.18-4-486 works fine.



-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (990, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-4-486
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)

Versions of packages linux-image-2.6.18-5-486 depends on:
ii  coreutils                     5.97-5.3   The GNU core utilities
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]         1.5.11     Debian configuration management sy
ii  initramfs-tools [linux-initra 0.85h      tools for generating an initramfs
ii  module-init-tools             3.3-pre4-2 tools for managing Linux kernel mo

linux-image-2.6.18-5-486 recommends no packages.

-- debconf information:
  linux-image-2.6.18-5-486/postinst/kimage-is-a-directory:
  shared/kernel-image/really-run-bootloader: true
  linux-image-2.6.18-5-486/postinst/old-initrd-link-2.6.18-5-486: true
  linux-image-2.6.18-5-486/preinst/already-running-this-2.6.18-5-486:
  linux-image-2.6.18-5-486/preinst/abort-install-2.6.18-5-486:
  linux-image-2.6.18-5-486/postinst/old-dir-initrd-link-2.6.18-5-486: true
  linux-image-2.6.18-5-486/postinst/old-system-map-link-2.6.18-5-486: true
  linux-image-2.6.18-5-486/preinst/failed-to-move-modules-2.6.18-5-486:
  linux-image-2.6.18-5-486/prerm/removing-running-kernel-2.6.18-5-486: true
  linux-image-2.6.18-5-486/prerm/would-invalidate-boot-loader-2.6.18-5-486: true
  linux-image-2.6.18-5-486/preinst/elilo-initrd-2.6.18-5-486: true
  linux-image-2.6.18-5-486/postinst/depmod-error-2.6.18-5-486: false
  linux-image-2.6.18-5-486/postinst/bootloader-error-2.6.18-5-486:
  linux-image-2.6.18-5-486/preinst/bootloader-initrd-2.6.18-5-486: true
  linux-image-2.6.18-5-486/preinst/abort-overwrite-2.6.18-5-486:
  linux-image-2.6.18-5-486/preinst/lilo-has-ramdisk:
  linux-image-2.6.18-5-486/postinst/depmod-error-initrd-2.6.18-5-486: false
  linux-image-2.6.18-5-486/postinst/create-kimage-link-2.6.18-5-486: true
  linux-image-2.6.18-5-486/postinst/bootloader-test-error-2.6.18-5-486:
  linux-image-2.6.18-5-486/preinst/overwriting-modules-2.6.18-5-486: true
  linux-image-2.6.18-5-486/preinst/initrd-2.6.18-5-486:
  linux-image-2.6.18-5-486/preinst/lilo-initrd-2.6.18-5-486: true