booting squeeze from an external firewire drive

[Gilles Risch <gilles.risch@gmail.com>]

Hi,

this is the first time that I try to install debian/linux onto a 
PowerBook G4 (PowerBook5,6). I installed squeeze from the latest 
installation iso (6.0.3) onto an external firewire drive without any 
problem.

After the installation the system reboots, prints some boot messages and 
waits for ±10 seconds. The machine then drops the following messages:

Begin: Mounting root file system ... Begin: Running /scripts/local-top 
... done
Begin: Waiting for root file system ... done.
Gave up waiting for root device. Common problem:
- Boot args (cat /proc/cmdline)
  - Check rootdelay = (did the system wait long enough?)
  - Check root = (did the system wait for the right device?)
- Missing modules (cat /proc/modules; ls /dev)


ALERT! /dev/disk/by-uuid/20f9211e-e6ae-495d-885c-aea167050b12 does not 
exist. Dropping to a shell!

Then BusyBox starts.

Has already someone successfully installed this release onto an externel 
firewire drive? Is there a solutions for this problem?

Regards,
Gilles