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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!lucy.swin.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!cs.mu.OZ.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.wildstar.net!cancer.vividnet.com!hunter.premier.net!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!howland.erols.net!EU.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.msfc.nasa.gov!centauri.hq.nasa.gov!newsfeed.gsfc.nasa.gov!usenet From: Andrew Szymkowiak <andrew.szymkowiak@gsfc.nasa.gov> Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: when does boot say "panic cannot mount root" Date: Sun, 27 Oct 1996 16:34:29 -0500 Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center -- Greenbelt, Maryland USA Lines: 31 Message-ID: <3273D564.2781E494@gsfc.nasa.gov> References: <32710A83.167EB0E7@gsfc.nasa.gov> <54vai5$okg@uriah.heep.sax.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: solia.gsfc.nasa.gov Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (X11; I; SunOS 4.1.4 sun4m) CC: aes To answer my own question: One of the times one cannot mount root is when the device you are trying to mount is not the same as the root_device that the root already mounted. Several times in single-user mode I have seen that error message when trying to do a mount. My wd1 system would not boot when I would say 1:wd(0,a)/kernel to the boot prompt. I thought this was the proper notation for the BIOS "D" drive, since I knew that I had to say 2:sd(0,a)/kernel for the SCSI as BIOS "E". I was being fooled since the "1:" form does start booting fine, (rather than saying "no such device"),until it gets to the point where it "cannot mount root". It turns out one should say wd(1,a)/kernel and things work fine now. Some day I will have to try 1:wd(1,0)/kernel. Thanks, Andy