[PLUG] power hit... am I screwed?

[Sandy Herring]

On Thu, 25 Jul 2002, Jeme A Brelin wrote: 
> 
> On Wed, 24 Jul 2002, Sandy Herring wrote:
> > The power failed while I was a work today. Fat lot of good the UPS did. I
> > tried rebooting my P-Pro S 200 (SMP) and it panics...
> > 
> > VFS: Cannot open root device "hda3" or 03:03
> > Please append a correct "root=" boot option
> > Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:03
> 
> OK, so this says it can't mount the root filesystem.

That much I was able to gather :)

> > So, then I tried booting into single user mode from (what I believe is) a
> > good boot floppy, and it bombs out with...
> 
> A single boot floppy?  Was this something like your distribution's "rescue
> disk" or was this a single floppy system like Tom's Root Boot or similar
> microdistribution?

It was created with mkbootdisk after I made and booted the 2.4.17 kernel on
my RH7.2 distro.

> If it's a rescue disk, it's just a kernel.  You'll still need to mount a
> root filesystem to get your basic utilities like init, login, and a shell,
> not to mention fsck.

I've tried booting into rescue mode, fscking /dev/hde{1-3,5,6,8} and then
trying the upgrade to RH7.3. It tells me I didn't shut down cleanly and need
to fsck. I've also tried the rescue mode procedure and simply rebooting,
letting grub select the kernel - it didn't change the errors I was already
getting. Same goes for rescue followed by booting from the boot disk *sigh*.

> > <lotsa stuff>
> > hde:hde lost interrupt
> > hde: lost interrupt
> > hde: lost interrupt
> > ide_dmsproc: chipset support ide_dms_lostirq func only 13:
> > <more stuff>
> > Kernel panic: No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel.
> 
> Well, if you can't mount the filesystem, you can't get to init, can you?

I've tried specifying the kernel and initrd via grub, still no go.
 
> (Is that earlier stuff a result of not having dma support in the floppy's
> kernel?)

I believe it's because I may have created the boot disk *before* changing
the HD from the onboard controller to the Ultra 100 TX2 (after upgrading
from 2.4.2 to 2.4.17 to get support for the controller). I only needed to
adjust swap in fstab thanks to grub.
 
> > I (of course, *sigh*) don't have a backup - and can't afford to lose
> > /var (it's my web server). It's running (or was) RH7.2 - which didn't
> > have ATA100 support in 2.4.2. I had to finagle the bagel to load it on
> > my Maxtor by attaching the drive to the onboard controller, then
> > making and booting into 2.4.17 and then connecting the drive to the
> > Promise controller. I've also got the media for RH7.3. I'm wondering
> > if I create a boot floppy for it (the CD-ROM isn't bootable on this
> > box) if I'd be able to simply do an upgrade. I'd prefer to get the
> > system back up as it was and do the upgrade as a planned exercise.
> > 
> > I welcome any and all help here.
> 
> OK, any and all.  Hear me out before you dismiss this.
> 
> I'm not terribly familiar with all the various boot floppy options out
> there, so I'll tell you what I'd do in such a pinch.
> 
> Hopefully you have a working system on which to do this.
> 
> Download the first two Debian install floppies (don't worry, I'm not
> telling you to reinstall anything):
> 
> <URL: http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/disks-i386/current/images-1.44/rescue.bin >
> <URL: http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/disks-i386/current/images-1.44/root.bin >
> 
> dd if=root.bin of=/dev/fd0 bs=512; sync
> [swap floppies]
> dd if=rescue.bin of=/dev/fd0 bs=512; sync
> 
> OK, now boot the broken system with the Rescue floppy.  When it asks for
> the Root floppy, feed it that.
> 
> Hit enter at the prompt (I know, it says you're going to install something
> or lose data, but you won't if you don't actually try).
> 
> When you get the Welcome! splash screen (curses interface), hit ALT+F2 and
> hit enter to activate the virtual console.
> 
> >From there, you can fsck your drives and attempt to repair the
> filesystems.
> 
> When you're done, just make sure the drives are unmounted, pop out the
> floppy, and reboot the system normally.
> 
> Anyway, that's what I'd do.
> J.
> -- 
>    -----------------
>      Jeme A Brelin
>     jeme at brelin.net
>    -----------------
>  [cc] counter-copyright
>  http://www.openlaw.org

Undoubtedly good advice, Jeme. But I suspect it will come to the same end as
my efforts using Red Hat's rescue mode, which allowed me to fsck. I'm
thinking now of getting a second HD for that system, doing a clean install
of RH7.3 (which ought to support the controller without any finagling) and
then seeing if I can recover my data from the current HD.

Thanks very much for your suggestions.

Sandy
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