[arch-general] new dmraid install - grub installed fine - boot fails to find root filesystem - dropped to [ramfs /]# ?

[David C. Rankin]

Guys,

	There is either a new bug in the dmraid install routine or I've screwed
something up. However, after not having problems with the prior 3 dmraid
installs I've done, I'm not sure it's me.

	I made a new Arch install on a box that had an existing dmraid setup running
suse 10.3. I installed per the "Installing with Fake Raid" wiki. For this setup,
it was a complete fresh install, I completely repartitioned the array for this
install not preserving /home or anything else. The logical partitions are:

/dev/mapper/nvidia_haheegdb
/dev/mapper/nvidia_haheegdbp5  /boot
/dev/mapper/nvidia_haheegdbp6  /
/dev/mapper/nvidia_haheegdbp7  swap
/dev/mapper/nvidia_haheegdbp8  /home

	All of the data partitions are ext3. (swap is of course swap)

	As per the wiki, during the grub install, I got an Error 22, so I went back in
created sym links between nvidia_haheegdbp5 -> nvidia_haheegdb5, to get around
the 'p' problem with grub not finding the partitions. I set the geometry with
CHS information from cfdisk and confirmed that grub was happy with a 'find
/grub/stage1' before setting the root (hd0,4) and performing the setup on (hd0).

	Grub setup completes without any errors and reports success.

	dm_mod and dm_mirror are included in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and /etc/rc.conf.

	However on boot, the boot fails when it can't find
/dev/mapper/nvidia_haheegdbp6. The actual error is:

--------------------

Waiting 10 seconds for device /dev/mapper/nvidia_haheegdbp6 ...

Root device '/dev/mapper/nvidia_haheegdbp6' doesn't exist. Attempting to create it.

ERROR: Unable to determine major/minor number of root device
'/dev/mapper/nvidia_haheegdbp6'

You are being dropped to a recovery shell

Type 'exit' to try and continue booting

/bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off

[ ramfs \ ]#

--------------------

	Now I'm stuck here. I have gone back chrooted the install and reinstalled grub
twice just to make sure. No change. It boots to the grub menu and then boots
fine until it gets to where it reads the root line from menu.lst and then dies.

	One thing I found strange, the second time I was setting up the chroot and had
made a /mnt/arch to base the chroot in, when I when to mount the root partition
with:

mount /dev/mapper/nvidia_haheegdbp6 /mnt/arch

mount gave the error "You must specify a type..." which I thought was strange
because then I turned around and did:

mount /dev/dm-2 /mnt/arch

and it worked just fine. Since /dev/mapper/nvidia_haheegdbp6 is just a link to
../dm-2 I found that strange.

	So I need ideas of what to try to get this box working. I can't figure out what
went wrong. dm_mod and dm_mirror are loaded and working fine when chrooted.

	With this as the 4th dmraid install I've done with Arch, I figured it would be
simple, but I think this is the first install I've done since dmraid added the
'p' designation. Other than needing to add the links from 'p' to 'no p'
everything seemed the same, so I'm not sure where things are mucked up.

	Let me know if I can provide anything else to help. I'm sort of dead in the
water until I get this sorted.


-- 
David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
Rankin Law Firm, PLLC
510 Ochiltree Street
Nacogdoches, Texas 75961
Telephone: (936) 715-9333
Facsimile: (936) 715-9339
www.rankinlawfirm.com