Re: HELP: kernel won't boot from /dev/sdb1

[Douglas Gilbert <dougg@torque.net>]

Artemio wrote:

 > I've just installed RH 7.3 on a machine with all-SCSI
 > discs. I had to load  "linux dd" with Adaptec AIC 79xx
 > driver floppy installed, but that's ok.
 > The / is mounted from /dev/sdb1.
 >
 > So, I got a clean 2.4.20 kernel, added AIC 79xx driver
 > sources to the kernel source tree, configured and
 > compiled and installed it (of course, I didn't
 > forget about the modules).
 >
 > In lilo, I said "root=/dev/sdb1" just as for the original
 > 2.4.18-3 RedHatkernel which boots ok.
 >
 > When I boot the new kernel, I get:
 > VFS: Cannot open root device at "811" or "08:11"
 >
 > From SCSI-howto I got that 08:11 stands for /dev/sda11.
 > Why would /dev/sdb1 be converted to 08:11 instead of 08:17
 > (again, corresponding to SCSI-howto)?

Those number are in hex, so "811" is major 8, minor 17 which
is (or should be) /dev/sdb1. Look earlier in the boot up
sequence, where the aic79xx driver is loaded and scans
for devices. It should say that it has attached /dev/sdb .
You may need a later version of that driver. Visit:
     http://people.FreeBSD.org/~gibbs/linux

Doug Gilbert