[TriLUG] Problem with Debian Etch

[Nick]

Steven Blanchard wrote:

> On 5/27/06, Nick <trilug at dogstar1.com> wrote:
>
>> Hey everyone, I have been having a problem with Etch and was wondering
>> if anyone else has run into this issue?
>>
>> After updating the initial install, the boot process hangs at "Begin:
>> waiting for root file system"
>>
>> I have repeated the install twice with the same results. Upon searching
>> for answers the only thing I found is the following:
>>
>>         I edited the file "/etc/kernel-img.conf" to add the line:
>>         ramdisk = /usr/sbin/mkinitrd.yaird
>>         And then regenerated the initrd image.
>>         dpkg-reconfigure linux-image-2.6.16-1-amd64-8-smp
>>         And I could boot. It seems this is an error while creating
>>         the initrd image.
>>
>> As this situation stretches my limited abilities I tried following these
>> directions (dubious as they look to me) by using Knoppix but I was
>> unsuccessful.
>>
>> Any feedback would be appreciated.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Nick
>>
>
> Does your computer have SATA?  I ran into similar problems at work
> with a machine.  The problem was that under sarge's kernel the SATA
> drive showed up as regular IDE (hda). With the newer kernel in etch,
> SATA shows up as a scsi device (sda).  To boot, I had to update the
> fstab and grub.conf by hand.
>
> Cheers,
> ~Steven

I have found a workaround for this issue however it is not a fix. If you 
get: "ALERT! /dev/hda1 does not exist. Dropping to a shell." after 
upgrading Etch you can do the following.

1. Wait for busybox shell
2. modprobe ide-disk
3. ctrl-d

Now I just need to figure out how to avoid busybox to begin with...

Nick