Re: Can't boot 2.6.32-3 after running 2.6.32-5 for a while
On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 11:14 AM, Stephen Powell <zlinuxman@wowway.com> wrote:
> OK, I'm sure it must be something simple, but I can't figure out what.
>
> I am running the "testing" release (Squeeze).
> I have two stock Debian kernels installed on my system:
> linux-image-2.6.32-3-686 and linux-image-2.6.32-5-686.
> My computer has a single hard disk, a traditional ATA IDE drive,
> also known as "PATA". One important difference between these
> two kernels is that the -3 kernel uses the old IDE drivers,
> which results in my hard disk device name being /dev/hda.
> The -5 kernel uses the newer libata driver, which results in
> my hard disk device name being /dev/sda. In other words,
> the newer kernel uses a SCSI device naming convention instead of
> the traditional IDE device naming convention.
>
> When I first installed the 2.6.32-5 kernel, it was from unstable,
> but this kernel has since migrated to testing. I didn't like
> all the UUID changes that the dependencies of this kernel package
> wanted to make and instead changed all my system files (/etc/fstab,
> /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume, and /etc/lilo.conf) to use
> the new SCSI device naming conventions. After some initial
> issues with the nouveau driver, I have been running the -5
> kernel successfully for some time.
>
> Recently, however, for the purpose of testing some software,
> I decided I wanted to boot my old kernel (the -3 kernel).
> I knew that I would have to make some changes to the system
> files first, however. I decided to make use of udev aliases
> in these system files. For example, in /etc/fstab, instead of
> something like
>
> /dev/sda1
>
> I used something like
>
> /dev/disk/by-uuid/04db5929-51e6-424a-ac5b-a592b96b9d04
>
> After making changes of this nature to /etc/lilo.conf, /etc/fstab,
> and /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume, I rebuilt the initial
> RAM file systems for both kernels with "update-initramfs -uk all"
> while running the -5 kernel. Everything appeared to work fine.
> I then shutdown and rebooted my current kernel (the -5 kernel).
> It booted just fine. I then tried to boot my old kernel (the -3
> kernel). It failed. The kernel and initial RAM file system
> were loaded just fine by the boot loader, but the -3 kernel
> couldn't make the switch between the initial RAM file system and
> the permanent root file system. I got a few "device not found"
> error messages and it left me in an ash shell with "(initramfs)"
> as the boot prompt.
>
> What did I do wrong? Is there a system file that I missed?
> Is this a missed dependency in the dependency-based boot system?
> I can still boot the -5 kernel just fine, but I can't get the
> -3 kernel to boot. I tried searching the internet with the
> search words
>
> Debian 2.6.32-3 2.6.32-5 "(initramfs)" "won't boot"
>
> but none of the hits looked promising to me.
>
> Any ideas? My hunch is that the udev aliases might not yet
> exist at the time they are being referenced. But that's just
> a wild guess at this point. The thing is though, it works fine
> for the -5 kernel.
IIUC, linux-image-2.6.32-3-686 uses hdX and linux-image-2.6.32-5-686
uses sdX so wouldn't your update-initramfs have updated your
linux-image-2.6.32-3-686 initrd with sdX device names?
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