Post-install issues with SATA hardware

[Tom Wright]

Hi all

Apologies for the cross-post to those who read forums.debian.net

I've just used the Etch installer (2.6.12) from the netboot cd to install
Debian on my new computer. It's got an ASUS A8N-VM CSM motherboard, and a
Seagate SATA 7200.9 hard disk drive.

When installing, it couldn't detect the disk automatically, but it worked fine
once I'd told it to use the sata_nv module. The rest of the installer went
without a hitch, and I've now rebooted. When starting the system, it
encounters a kernel panic:

pivot_root: No such file or directory
/sbin/init: 432: cannot open dev/console: No such file
Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

There's quite a bit more above that too, but I'm typing it out by hand as I
can't get into the system. Let me know if more detail is needed, but I can
only read the last screenful.

I've also tried adding this line to the GRUB booting commands, between the
"kernel" and "initrd" lines:

module /lib/modules/2.6.12-1-amd64-generic/kernel/drivers/scsi/sata_nv.ko

...and I've tried this too (note the "lib64")...

module /lib64/modules/2.6.12-1-amd64-generic/kernel/drivers/scsi/sata_nv.ko

...but neither of them made any difference. Does anyone know what to do to
solve this? Somebody must've installed successfully on this motherboard!

I've also tried using the netinst CD as a rescue disk and (by manually
modprobe-ing the sata_nv module) can get into rescue mode. Perhaps I can
continue the install from here, but I don't know how - any help on that would
be most welcome too.

Thanks!

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[Clive Menzies]

I found a similar problem with a software RAID (sata) data array not
being assembled before an attempt to mount it; to ensure the sata drives
are recognised at boot, include the modules in /etc/modules. In my case:

libata
ata_piix

Worth a try?

Regards

Clive

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[Thomas Wright]

On Saturday 28 January 2006 13:49, Clive Menzies wrote:
> I found a similar problem with a software RAID (sata) data array not
> being assembled before an attempt to mount it; to ensure the sata drives
> are recognised at boot, include the modules in /etc/modules. In my case:
>
> libata
> ata_piix
>
> Worth a try?

Thanks for that - that didn't solve it as it couldn't read the root
filesystem, but it jogged my brain and I found the problem: for some reason
unknown to me, the installed recognised the disk as /dev/sdc but when I
rebooted, it was on /dev/sda. A quick change to the grub "root=" section and
all is well!

Thanks!