Mailing List Archive: Missing /dev/hda

Missing /dev/hda

Jan 18, 2006, 9:30 AM

Post #1 of 3 (1954 views)

I've been keeping my system fairly up to date, but it's running a 2.4
kernel so it's been a long time since my last reboot.

This morning, it was time for a quarterly reboot, but things didn't go
so well. I think the most important error message concerned the lack
of a root filesystem:

----- %< -----
* Checking root filesystem ...fsck.ext3: No such file or directory
while trying to open /dev/hda5
/dev/hda5:
The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2
filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2
filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the
superblock is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an
alternate superblock:

e2fsck -b 8193 <device>
* Filesystem couldn't be fixed :(
----- %< ------

Sure enough, there was no /dev/hd* in the rootfs -- though the long
devfs representations were there: /dev/ide/host0/... I edited
/etc/fstab to point to them instead of /dev/hda*, and everything was
OK.

I know that I've recently got new baselayout and sysvinit packages,
and udev has recently been added to the profile, but I'm unsure why
the boot-time mounting of /dev is incomplete. Clues, anyone?

--
Paul Heinlein <> heinlein@madboa.com <> www.madboa.com
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Re: Missing /dev/hda [ In reply to ]

heinlein at madboa

Jan 18, 2006, 12:46 PM

Post #2 of 3 (1891 views)

Permalink

On Wed, 18 Jan 2006, Paul Heinlein wrote:

> ----- %< -----
> * Checking root filesystem ...fsck.ext3: No such file or directory while
> trying to open /dev/hda5
> /dev/hda5:
> The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2
> filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2
> filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the
> superblock is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an
> alternate superblock:
>
> e2fsck -b 8193 <device>
> * Filesystem couldn't be fixed :(
> ----- %< ------
>
> Sure enough, there was no /dev/hd* in the rootfs -- though the long
> devfs representations were there: /dev/ide/host0/... I edited
> /etc/fstab to point to them instead of /dev/hda*, and everything was
> OK.

Follow on...

I was uncomfortable with hard-coding /dev/ide/... in fstab, so I ended
up adding labels to all filesystems and swap partitions and editing
/etc/fstab to use LABEL= for device specification instead. That should
be a little more portable should I find a stable 2.6 kernel and move
to udev.

I'm still stumped why the /dev/hd* devices are no longer available to
/etc/init.d/checkroot.

--
Paul Heinlein <> heinlein@madboa.com <> www.madboa.com
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Re: Re: Missing /dev/hda [ In reply to ]

K.D.Watling at lboro

Jan 31, 2006, 1:00 AM

Post #3 of 3 (1897 views)

Permalink

On 18 Jan 2006, at 19:46, Paul Heinlein wrote:

> I'm still stumped why the /dev/hd* devices are no longer available
> to /etc/init.d/checkroot.

Hi Paul

I had the same problem and discovered that the devfsd startup scripts

/lib/rcscripts/addons/devfs-start.sh
/lib/rcscripts/addons/devfs-stop.sh

were simply gone, so I copied them from another system, whilst booted
from the LiveCD, and that fixed the broken devfs.

After rebooting I upgraded sys-fs/devfsd-1.3.25-r8 to sys-fs/
devfsd-1.3.25-r9 and this officially reinstated the missing devfs
startup scripts.

I am not sure what broken package deleted these somewhat critical
startup scripts: presumably they were either missed out of sys-fs/
devfsd-1.3.25-r8 or sys-fs/udev was being rather aggressive?

Cheers

Keith

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