Sam Kuper:
>
> Check root= bootarg cat /proc/cmdline
> or missing modules, devices: cat /proc/modules ls /dev
> Alert! /dev/sda1 does not exist. Dropping to a shell!
I guess one of your new drives uses /dev/sda which was previously used
by your flash drive. You probably need to find out the flash drive's new
device name and update your grub.conf and fstab accordingly.
Dear Jochen,
Thanks for the quick reply. Unfortunately, because the flash drive doesn't mount, I can't access the /boot directory from the BusyBox prompt in order to edit /boot/grub/grub.conf - and also, there is no fstab in /etc .
I'm guessing that I need to do something in the GRUB boot menu, but what? It gives me two options:
Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.18-6-amd64
Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.18-6-amd64 (single-user mode)
Pressing 'e' to edit the first gives the following:
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-6-amd64 root=/dev/sda1 ro vga=791
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.18-6-amd64
savedefault
Now as you've said, I probably shouldn't be trying to boot from sda1. It seems pretty clear from the output of the boot sequence that the flash drive is being assigned to /dev/sde, so I've tried changing the root= to /dev/sde1 (and also a few other things, like /dev/sde and /dev/sdf1 but these didn't get me anywhere useful).
This let things get a bit further. I was asked if I wanted to log in as root to fix things, or to press Ctrl-D to carry on. I pressed Ctrl-D and got to a Bash shell, where I was able to edit my /etc/fstab and /boot/grub/menu.lst (I don't seem to have a grub.conf).
I'm still having difficulty getting the new drives set up as a RAID 5, but that's a different topic!
Thanks again,
Sam