nixCraft

Dear friends,
I have a system whose configuration is as hereunder:
AMD Sempron processor 2800+ with 1 GB of RAM and two hard disks, one of
120 GB and the other of 320GB.
The partitions are as follows:


Disk /dev/hda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 2432 19535008+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 2433 4864 19535040 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 * 4865 7296 19535040 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda4 7297 14593 58613152+ 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 7297 7420 995998+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda6 7421 9852 19535008+ b W95 FAT32
/dev/hda7 9853 12284 19535008+ b W95 FAT32
/dev/hda8 12285 14593 18547011 83 Linux

Disk /dev/hdc: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdc1 * 1 25496 204796588+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hdc2 25497 38913 107772052+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

I have three operating systems in the partitions mentioned below:

/dev/hda1 RedHat Enterprise Linux 5
/dev/hda2 Fedora Core 7
/dev/hda3 Windoze XP

Today, while trying to boot into Fedora Core 7, the system could not boot and the following message was spit out.

mount: could not find filesystem '/dev/root'
setuproot: moving /dev failed: No such file or directory
setuproot: error mounting /proc: No such file or directory
setuproot: error mounting /sys: No such file or directory
switchroot: mount failed: No such file or directory
kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

The kernel version of Fedora Core 7 is 2.6.21-1.3194.fc7. Is there any way to set the system right and boot into Fedora Core 7 ? The contents of the file
"/boot/grub/menu.ist" are as follows:

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You do not have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /, eg.
# root (hd0,0)
# kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda1
# initrd /boot/initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=30
splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
#hiddenmenu
title Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (2.6.18-8.el5)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-8.el5 ro root=LABEL=/1 rhgb quiet crashkernel=128M@16M
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18-8.el5.img
title Fedora-base (2.6.21-1.3194.fc7)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.21-1.3194.fc7 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.21-1.3194.fc7.img
title Win XP
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
chainloader +1

I also ran the command "fsck.ext3 -fv /dev/hda2 after ensuring that /dev/hda2 is unmounted and no errors/bad blocks are reported.
Can anybody enlighten me as to how to go about to boot into Fedora Core 7. I further inform that I could boot into the other two OS's,
i.e., RHEL-5 and Windoze XP.

Yours faithfully,

talpa_sai

readjust the rootflags
man rootflags or man rdev
"
NAME
rdev - query/set image root device, RAM disk size, or video mode

SYNOPSIS
rdev [ -Rrvh ] [ -o offset ] [ image [ value [ offset ] ] ]
rdev [ -o offset ] [ image [ root_device [ offset ] ] ]
ramsize [ -o offset ] [ image [ size [ offset ] ] ]
vidmode [ -o offset ] [ image [ mode [ offset ] ] ]
rootflags [ -o offset ] [ image [ flags [ offset ] ] ]

DESCRIPTION
With no arguments, rdev outputs an /etc/mtab line for the current root file system. With no arguments, ramsize, vid-
mode, and rootflags print usage information.

In a bootable image for the Linux kernel on i386, there are several pairs of bytes which specify the root device, the
video mode, and the size of the RAM disk. These pairs of bytes, by default, begin at offset 504 (decimal) in the ker-
nel image:

"
by when, then, if, far you done man paging the rdev? after that? run grub-install and re-assign the right values.

happens! happens!
never use a production machine/hard drive for the fidgity R&D, learning tips and tricks, most teach the tips and tricks, none tells about "TRAPS." this i learnt from svn upgrading my xorg in 2004 which just halted my work on a 80 gb hdd, just dedicated for RHEL 3.0 dev work!
happens! happens!