[sahneh]

Tried to boot in to debian the other day, and I found it wouldn't start up. To my knowledge I hadn't done anything to change it prior to this. I currently have a triple boot: xp, debian, and ubuntu. Below is the message that it gives me.
___________

Booting the kernel.
Loading, please wait ...
Warning bootdevice may be renamed, Try root=/dev/hda2
Gave up on waiting for root device. Common problems:

-Boot Args(cat /proc/cmdline)
-check rootdelay = (did the system wait long enough?)
-check root = (did the system wait for the right device?)
-Missing modules (cat /proc/modules; ls /dev)

Alert! /dev/sda2 does not exist. Dropping to a shell!
Enter 'help' for a list of built in commands

/bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off
(initramfs)

___________

I'm still pretty new to troubleshooting anything in linux so I really don't know how to approach this problem, or how to interpret this error message. Any advice?

 

[wmorri]

Hi,

Welcome to TSF!!

Are you able to make it to GRUB the bootloader? If so are you able to boot into each of the others? It would seem that Debian is looking for the kernel and other files on another hdd. Did you install Debian on a second hdd or is there only one?

Cheers!

 

[sahneh]

Hi,

Welcome to TSF!!

Are you able to make it to GRUB the bootloader? If so are you able to boot into each of the others? It would seem that Debian is looking for the kernel and other files on another hdd. Did you install Debian on a second hdd or is there only one?

Cheers!

I do make it into the boot loader, and Debian is only installed on the primary drive. Since my original post I have attempted a bunch of things with little success.

In GRUB, I attempted to boot the kernel from each of partitions I have (root=/dev/hda1). Each time the kernel failed to load. Reinstalling GRUB also did not seem to work.

I also attempted to troubleshoot the problem from my ubuntu partition. However, I found that while I could boot into ubuntu, within a minute or so after loading X, the system would completely freeze (no mouse, no keyboard, etc.). I found the same situation to be true when booting with knoppix.

 

[wmorri]

Hi,

I would recommend that you re-install. I am not sure what the main problem is here. It might be the triple boot. I have had issues with having two linux distros on the same computer, especially when it comes to doing kernel updates. But I am getting ahead of myself.

See what happens if you reinstall one of the linux distros, if you are able to get to GRUB or into the OS itself.

Cheers!