Xen users - Mar 2010 - Re: Full Virtualised Guest not booting with waiting for sda2 to appear error

This means that either your kernel or your initrd does not include the necessary
drivers to support the root drive, or that you''re pointing it at the
wrong device.  The first thing to try is to escape the default startup menu (hit
Esc when the SuSE menu shows up) and edit the the default boot entry (select the
entry and press "e" to edit).  Select the line with the kernel image
on it and press "e" to edit it - change root=/dev/sda2 to
root=/dev/hda2 and see if that works.

-Nick
>>> On 2010/03/24 at 13:14, <peter.chiu@stfc.ac.uk> wrote: 
> I would appreciate for some advice on how to resolve a DomU booting
> problem.
> 
> On an OpenSuse 11.2 (x86-64) server, I am trying to convert an OpenSuse
> 10.0 (x86-64) system as a full virtualised guest, using an image file.
> 
> The image file is produced by running dd if=/dev/sda | ssh xen_server
> "dd of=/disks/guest_image".
> 
> This method has worked before on other OpenSuse 10.0 (x86_64) server,
> but not this time.
> 
> Basically when the guest os starts up, it seems to start up okay, but
> later complains
> 
>     "Waiting for /dev/sda2 to appear.... not found - exiting to
/bin/sh"
> 
> and subsequently times out and returns a $ prompt, which does not seem
> to recognise any commands.
> 
> I am aware that I need to
> 
> a.       modify the guest config file so that the disk statement is
> referring to hda,
> 
> b.       the image itself needs to be modified in its
> /boot/grub/menu.lst so that all references on sda2 are replaced by hda2,
> and
> 
> c.       all references of sda2 in /etc/fstab are replaced by hda2.
> 
> This trick seems to work on another host (which incidentally uses sda1 /
> hda1, as oppose to sda2 / hda2).
> 
> But this time it does not.
> 
> Interesting enough, despite of the change of the /boot/grub/menu.lst
> file, it is still looking for /dev/sda2, rather than /dev/hda2.
> 
> During the boot up sequence, I can enter into the boot OS selection
> menu, select the boot entry, and edit the root device from /dev/sda2 to
> /dev/hda2.
> 
> Only this time, it fails with a similar error:
> 
>    "Waiting for /dev/hda2 to appear.... not found - exiting to
/bin/sh"
> 
> Any idea how to recover from this situation?
> 
> Many thanks.
> 
> Peter



--------
This e-mail may contain confidential and privileged material for the sole use of
the intended recipient.  If this email is not intended for you, or you are not
responsible for the delivery of this message to the intended recipient, please
note that this message may contain SEAKR Engineering (SEAKR)
Privileged/Proprietary Information.  In such a case, you are strictly prohibited
from downloading, photocopying, distributing or otherwise using this message,
its contents or attachments in any way.  If you have received this message in
error, please notify us immediately by replying to this e-mail and delete the
message from your mailbox.  Information contained in this message that does not
relate to the business of SEAKR is neither endorsed by nor attributable to
SEAKR.

_______________________________________________
Xen-users mailing list
Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users

Thanks, Nick, for your response.

That is what I have done actually, as described in my
message:
> During the boot up sequence, I can enter into the boot OS selection
> menu, select the boot entry, and edit the root device from /dev/sda2
to
> /dev/hda2
But no good still, it then said waiting for /dev/hda2 and then timed
out, same symptom really.

Peter

-----Original Message-----
From: Nick Couchman [mailto:Nick.Couchman@seakr.com] 
Sent: 24 March 2010 22:19
To: xen-users@lists.xensource.com; Chiu, Peter (STFC,RAL,SSTD)
Subject: Re: [Xen-users] Full Virtualised Guest not booting with waiting
for sda2 to appear error

This means that either your kernel or your initrd does not include the
necessary drivers to support the root drive, or that you''re pointing it
at the wrong device.  The first thing to try is to escape the default
startup menu (hit Esc when the SuSE menu shows up) and edit the the
default boot entry (select the entry and press "e" to edit).  Select
the
line with the kernel image on it and press "e" to edit it - change
root=/dev/sda2 to root=/dev/hda2 and see if that works.

-Nick
>>> On 2010/03/24 at 13:14, <peter.chiu@stfc.ac.uk> wrote: 
> I would appreciate for some advice on how to resolve a DomU booting
> problem.
> 
> On an OpenSuse 11.2 (x86-64) server, I am trying to convert an
OpenSuse
> 10.0 (x86-64) system as a full virtualised guest, using an image file.
> 
> The image file is produced by running dd if=/dev/sda | ssh xen_server
> "dd of=/disks/guest_image".
> 
> This method has worked before on other OpenSuse 10.0 (x86_64) server,
> but not this time.
> 
> Basically when the guest os starts up, it seems to start up okay, but
> later complains
> 
>     "Waiting for /dev/sda2 to appear.... not found - exiting to
/bin/sh"
> 
> and subsequently times out and returns a $ prompt, which does not seem
> to recognise any commands.
> 
> I am aware that I need to
> 
> a.       modify the guest config file so that the disk statement is
> referring to hda,
> 
> b.       the image itself needs to be modified in its
> /boot/grub/menu.lst so that all references on sda2 are replaced by
hda2,
> and
> 
> c.       all references of sda2 in /etc/fstab are replaced by hda2.
> 
> This trick seems to work on another host (which incidentally uses sda1
/
> hda1, as oppose to sda2 / hda2).
> 
> But this time it does not.
> 
> Interesting enough, despite of the change of the /boot/grub/menu.lst
> file, it is still looking for /dev/sda2, rather than /dev/hda2.
> 
> During the boot up sequence, I can enter into the boot OS selection
> menu, select the boot entry, and edit the root device from /dev/sda2
to
> /dev/hda2.
> 
> Only this time, it fails with a similar error:
> 
>    "Waiting for /dev/hda2 to appear.... not found - exiting to
/bin/sh"
> 
> Any idea how to recover from this situation?
> 
> Many thanks.
> 
> Peter



--------

This e-mail may contain confidential and privileged material for the
sole use of the intended recipient.  If this email is not intended for
you, or you are not responsible for the delivery of this message to the
intended recipient, please note that this message may contain SEAKR
Engineering (SEAKR) Privileged/Proprietary Information.  In such a case,
you are strictly prohibited from downloading, photocopying, distributing
or otherwise using this message, its contents or attachments in any way.
If you have received this message in error, please notify us immediately
by replying to this e-mail and delete the message from your mailbox.
Information contained in this message that does not relate to the
business of SEAKR is neither endorsed by nor attributable to SEAKR.
-- 
Scanned by iCritical.

_______________________________________________
Xen-users mailing list
Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users

On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 3:29 PM,  <peter.chiu@stfc.ac.uk>
wrote:
> Thanks, Nick, for your response.
>
> That is what I have done actually, as described in my message:
>> During the boot up sequence, I can enter into the boot OS selection
>> menu, select the boot entry, and edit the root device from /dev/sda2
> to
>> /dev/hda2
>
> But no good still, it then said waiting for /dev/hda2 and then timed
> out, same symptom really.
does the original server use scsi disk?
If yes, it might be the case that the ide drivers was not loaded. Try
these commands when it times out and enter recover shell:

cat /proc/partitions
dmesg | grep hda
dmesg | grep sda
lsmod | grep piix

-- 
Fajar

_______________________________________________
Xen-users mailing list
Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users