Neil Bothwick <neil <at> digimed.co.uk> writes:
> And how does that comment help the OP? Without a link to the list > archives, all it tells him is that he is not the first to experience this. Well if the solution is so trivial, I wonder why the devs don't put the fix into the installation liveCD? The error can be due to a variety of problems. I have installed more than a dozen gentoo systems over the last few years. Although not a whiz at Gentoo, I do know the my way around. Figuring out which install media to use, which kernel sources (stage 1-3) and such both from a liveCD install is not difficult. Getting the LiveCD installation media to work, is always a challenge, particularly with dual boot systems. > Results 1 - 11 of 11 from archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-user for "not a > valid root device". I went to this site. I have not seen this site before. I do not see an interface for searching historical postings. Some enlightenment on searching out the postings would be appreciated. That said. I went back to a minimal cd installation. During the fdisk portion I noticed that none of the partitions have been marked as bootable (*). I used fdisk to mark the /boot partition as bootable. I'm not sure this is required, but the handbook for amd64 says to toggle the boot flag, so I did. Several postings have suggested that the correct device driver for the sata controller is not in the (stage 3) kernel (this make sense). Why should an HP pavilion 9000z be support. I not sure that HP sells more than a few million of these laptops per year...... Anywhy, even the handbook tells me to use a stage3 install tarball. HOwever, a stage 3 does not give one the opportunity to build a custom kernel. So my understanding is I'm going to have to use a stage 1 tarball, which is not supported any more? It has been said that I should use a stage one install tarball and build a custom kernel. I'm just uncertain which installation media to use and the guide for building a custom kernel (using lspci and lshw to discern the actual sata controller), thus enabling the correct sata driver. Any light on building a custom kernel, during the installation process, is most welcome. Minimal, liveCD or ??? It has been almost a year since I've installed a dual boot laptop and ever time it's an adventure.....After this HP, I have a Dell lpatop and a Sony Viao to set up. James -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
