source: MondoRescue/branches/2.06/documentation/faqbooting.sgml@ 323

<article>
<articleinfo>
<!-- $MVD$:app("MicroVision WebExpress","769") -->
<!-- $MVD$:template("","0","0") -->
<!-- $MVD$:color("18","840084","Custom #1","0") -->
<!-- $MVD$:color("19","e0e0e0","Custom #2","0") -->
<!-- $MVD$:color("20","80ff","Orange","1") -->
<!-- $MVD$:color("21","ffd6ce","Lavender","1") -->
<title>Kernel/Linux/Booting</title>
</articleinfo>

<para></para>
<informaltable><tgroup cols="3"><tbody>
<row>
<entry>
Mondo Rescue and Mindi Linux HOWTO
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<ulink url="faqgeneral.html">Prev</ulink>
</entry>
<entry>
Chapter 10. Troubleshooting/FAQ
</entry>
<entry>
<ulink url="faqinstallation.html">Next</ulink>
</entry>
</row>
</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>

<sect1 id="FAQBOOTIN"><title>10.3. Kernel/Linux/Booting</title>
<variablelist>
<listitem>
<para></para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>Q:
<para><ulink url="faqbooting.html#AEN601">How do I know if Mondo
works with my Linux distro?</ulink></para></term>
<varlistentry><term>Q:
<para><ulink url="faqbooting.html#AEN607">When I try to boot from
the Mondo CD, it says, "VFS: Unable to mount root fs." I am using a
Debian distro. What do I do?</ulink></para></term>
<varlistentry><term>Q:
<para><ulink url="faqbooting.html#AEN612">When I try to boot from
the Mondo CD, it says, "Cannot mount root fs - kernel panic," or
something similar. What do I do?</ulink></para></term>
<varlistentry><term>Q:
<para><ulink url="faqbooting.html#AEN618">When I try to boot from
the Mondo CD, it says, "Mounting /tmp/tmpfs...fatal error! Failed
UPGRADE YOUR RAM". What does that mean?</ulink></para></term>
<varlistentry><term>Q:
<para><ulink url="faqbooting.html#AEN624">When I try to boot from
the Mondo CD, it says something about not finding my CD-ROM drive
and then it blames the kernel. What does that
mean?</ulink></para></term>
<varlistentry><term>Q:
<para><ulink url="faqbooting.html#AEN631">The Mondo CD/floppy takes
ages to boot. How can I speed it up?</ulink></para></term>
<varlistentry><term>Q: <para><ulink url="faqbooting.html#AEN636">I
made a Mondo CD using the failsafe kernel (i.e. I said 'no' when
Mondo asked if I wanted to use my own kernel). It still doesn't
boot. Help!</ulink></para></term>
<varlistentry><term>Q:
<para><ulink url="faqbooting.html#AEN641">What if my PC won't boot
from a CD?</ulink></para></term>
<varlistentry><term>Q:
<para><ulink url="faqbooting.html#AEN647">But why won't Mondo boot
from my CD? It says my kernel is flawed/outdated/ whatever, and
when I wrote to you, you told me the same thing... but I still
don't get it. I mean, my kernel works for everything else. Why not
Mondo?</ulink></para></term>
<varlistentry><term>Q:
<para><ulink url="faqbooting.html#AEN653">Why do I only need a boot
disk if I'm using a tape drive? Where are the data
disks?</ulink></para></term>
<varlistentry><term>Q:
<para><ulink url="faqbooting.html#AEN658">Why does it say, "Process
accounting FAILED" when I reboot?</ulink></para></term>
<varlistentry><term>Q:
<para><ulink url="faqbooting.html#AEN663">Why does it say,
&amp;#8220;request_module[block-major-1]: Root fs not mounted VFS:
Cannot open root device "100" or 01:00 Please append a correct
"root=" boot option kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on
01:00&amp;#8221; when i boot from the CD?</ulink></para></term>
<varlistentry><term>Q:
<para><ulink url="faqbooting.html#COPYBOOTDATADISK">How do i copy
boot+data disk images to physical floppy
disks?</ulink></para></term>
<varlistentry><term>Q: <para><link linkend="TAPENICE">My tape drive
doesn't play nicely with Mondo at boot-time. What do I
do?</link></para></term>
</variablelist>
<para><anchor id="AEN601"/>Q: How do I know if Mondo works with my
Linux distro?</para>
<para>A: Try running it. :) That's always a good way to find out.
Check the <ulink url="../../docs/docs.html">Documentation
page</ulink>, too.</para>
<para><anchor id="AEN607"/>Q: When I try to boot from the Mondo CD,
it says, "VFS: Unable to mount root fs." I am using a Debian
distro. What do I do?</para>
<para>A: Ask Debian's designers why they, unlike every other distro
I can find, have included cramfs and other 'goodies' with their
kernel. In the meantime, please use '-k FAILSAFE' in your command
line when calling Mondo.</para>
<para><anchor id="AEN612"/>Q: When I try to boot from the Mondo CD,
it says, "Cannot mount root fs - kernel panic," or something
similar. What do I do?</para>
<para>A: Recompile your kernel (or use '-k FAILSAFE'). Take a look
at <ulink url="kernelsupport.html">Linux Kernel support</ulink> to
see what you're kernel must support.</para>
<para><anchor id="AEN618"/>Q: When I try to boot from the Mondo CD,
it says, "UPGRADE YOUR RAM". What does that mean?</para>
<para>A: Recompile your kernel and add Virtual memory file system
support. Take a look at <ulink url="kernelsupport.html">Linux
Kernel support</ulink> to see what you're kernel must support. (Of
course, if your PC has less than 64MB of RAM, you could always...
what's the phrase? I know, upgrade your RAM!)</para>
<para><anchor id="AEN624"/>Q: When I try to boot from the Mondo CD,
it says something about not finding my CD-ROM drive and then it
blames the kernel. What does that mean?</para>
<para>A: Your kernel must support initrd, loopfs, IDE CD-ROM's, and
ramdisks. Take a look at <ulink url="kernelsupport.html">Linux
Kernel support</ulink> to see what you're kernel must support. If
your kernel does not support these things, Mondo will not boot from
your CD. However, when running Mindi, you may choose to use _its_
kernel instead of your own. In addition, you may boot from floppy
disk images instead the CD: copy the disk images from the CD
/images directory to floppy disks, using 'dd'. Take a look at
<ulink url="faqbooting.html#COPYBOOTDATADISK">Copy boot data
disks</ulink> on how to make those.</para>
<para><anchor id="AEN631"/>Q: The Mondo CD/floppy takes ages to
boot. How can I speed it up?</para>
<para>A: Edit mindi (it's a shell script, btw) and change
LILO_OPTIONS="" to LILO_OPTIONS="-c". This enables map compaction
in lilo and speeds up booting, for more info see the lilo man
page.</para>
<para><anchor id="AEN636"/>Q: I made a Mondo CD using the failsafe
kernel (i.e. I said 'no' when Mondo asked if I wanted to use my own
kernel). It still doesn't boot. Help!</para>
<para>A: OK, now that is a bug. :-) I included a kernel with Mondo
(technically, with Mindi, which Mondo uses) to make sure that users
could use Mondo despite flaws in their own kernels. If you are
using Mondo/Mindi's kernel but still cannot boot from your Mondo CD
then please e-mail the list.</para>
<para><anchor id="AEN641"/>Q: What if my PC won't boot from a
CD?</para>
<para>A: Copy the image files from the CD /images directory, using
the dd command. Take a look at
<ulink url="faqbooting.html#COPYBOOTDATADISK">Copy boot data
disks</ulink> on how to make those. Then boot from the first
floppy; follow it up with the data disks; finally, type 'mount
/mnt/cdrom' and then utilize the restore script as usual, e.g.
mondorestore.</para>
<para><anchor id="AEN647"/>Q: But why won't Mondo boot from my CD?
It says my kernel is flawed/outdated/ whatever, and when I wrote to
you, you told me the same thing... but I still don't get it. I
mean, my kernel works for everything else. Why not Mondo?</para>
<para>A: Because Mondo makes a boot disk using your kernel. I bet
your other software doesn't do that. Also, not all kernels are
suitable for boot disks. I'm sorry but that's Life. Upgrade your
kernel and/or recompile it. Take a look at
<ulink url="kernelsupport.html">Linux Kernel support</ulink> to see
what you're kernel must support.</para>
<para><anchor id="AEN653"/>Q: Why do I only need a boot disk if I'm
using a tape drive? Where are the data disks?</para>
<para>A: On the tape. :-) The first 32MB of the tape will be set
aside for a large tarball containing the data disks, a list of all
files backed up, and other sundries. If Mondo and Mindi do their
respective jobs then you won't need additional floppies, just the
boot floppy and the tape(s).</para>
<para><anchor id="AEN658"/>Q: Why does it say, "Process accounting
FAILED" when I reboot?</para>
<para>A: You were using Process Accounting. Red Hat (or whichever
distro you are using) does not provide a startup/shutdown script
yet. So, when you try to backup the process log, it just grows and
grows as Mondo tries to back it up. Mondo doesn't back it up
anymore and that's why. The unfortunate side-effect is... well,
what you see on your screen. Type 'touch /var/log/pacct' and then
'paccton' to fix the error message.</para>
<para><anchor id="AEN663"/>Q: Why does it say,
&amp;#8220;request_module[block-major-1]: Root fs not mounted VFS:
Cannot open root device "100" or 01:00 Please append a correct
"root=" boot option kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on
01:00&amp;#8221; when i boot from the CD?</para>
<para>A: Recompile your kernel and add initrd support. Take a look
at <ulink url="kernelsupport.html">Linux Kernel support</ulink>to
see what you're kernel must support.</para>
<para><anchor id="COPYBOOTDATADISK"/>Q: How do i copy boot+data
disk images to physical floppy disks ?</para>
<para>A: The images are in /root/images/mindi (eve if they are
created by Mondo) and also in the 'images' directory on the first
CD of your backup set, if you have backed up to CD. You can copy
the images to disk as follows:-</para>
<para></para>
<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
<row>
<entry>

[boot disk]bash# fdformat /dev/fd0u1722bash# dd if=/root/images/mindi/mindi-boot.1722.img of=/dev/fd0u1772[data disk]bash# fdformat /dev/fd0bash# dd if=/root/images/mindi/mindi-data-N.img of=/dev/fd0Replace N with 1, 2, etc. 

</entry>
</row>
</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>

<variablelist>
<listitem>
<para></para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><para id="TAPENICE"></para>Q: My tape drive
doesn't play nicely with Mondo at boot-time. What do I do?</term>
<varlistentry><term>A: Play with 'mt'. Use its setblksize and
defblksize switches to reconfigure your tape drive if necessary.
Some tape drives just suck, I'm sorry to say. If yours is one of
them then God help you. Mondo can handle any tape drive whose drive
and firmware can handle fread(), fwrite(), fread() and fclose().
Mondo uses standard C libraries to talk to your tape streamer. If
your tape streamer can't handle that then you had better call a
priest. Either that or ask for a refund.</term>
</variablelist>
<para></para>
<informaltable><tgroup cols="3"><tbody>
<row>
<entry>
<ulink url="faqgeneral.html">Prev</ulink>
</entry>
<entry>
<ulink url="index.html">Home</ulink>
</entry>
<entry>
<ulink url="faqinstallation.html">Next</ulink>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
General
</entry>
<entry>
<ulink url="faq.html">Up</ulink>
</entry>
<entry>
Installation
</entry>
</row>
</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>


</sect1></article>