On Sat, May 18, 2013 at 02:40:47PM -0700, Richard C. Steffens wrote: > I installed 12.04 on a Dell Dimension 2400 that has a PCI card driving a > SATA hard drive. When I boot I get the following error message: > > Gave up waiting for root device. Common problems: > - 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/82df63b6-8b97-4287-ae1b-db29565f5370 does not > exist. > Dropping to a shell! > > BusyBox v1.18.5 (Ubuntu 1:1.18.5-1ubuntu4.1) built-in shell (ash) > Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands. > > (initramfs) > > I'm assuming that the problem is GRUB is not finding the SATA device > (although that is just a guess on my part). What do I have to do to get > this box to boot?
Is this a brand new install that was broken from the start, or did it work in the past? The kernel can't find the root file system. GRUB is configured to tell the kernel which file system is the root file system. There are multiple ways a file system can be identified. In this case, it's by [UUID][1] (universally-unique identifier). AFAIK, GRUB doesn't verify that the file system exists. It just passes the info on when it loads the kernel into memory. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uuid It could be that GRUB is configured with the wrong UUID for the root file system, but that seems unlikely if this is a brand new install. It's possible that the initramfs doesn't contain the driver module necessary to access the SATA card. (An initramfs is a file that, once loaded into memory by GRUB, appears to the kernel as a stripped-down root file system. It is used briefly during the boot process, prior to mounting the real root file system.) Troubleshooting this could be a bit complicated for e-mail. You might consider hauling the computer to the clinic tomorrow. -- Paul _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
