I've got an old linux server that failed to boot this morning. It's running Debian stable. I get the following on the console:
LILO 22.8 Loading Linux......................................................................................................................................................... ............
And it just sits there. Any idea what is going on or how I can fix this?
Update: I've tried loading the LinuxOLD config and I get a little further but I then get the following error:
VFS: Cannot open root device "302" or unknown-block(3,2)
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(3,2)
Update2: I was able to boot my system using RIP Linux. In it's boot menu I chose to boot a specific partition (I chose /dev/hda2 where I have my root fs installed) and it booted no problem. However, if I boot try to boot using LILO that's installed on my hard drive I still have the same issue (even explicitly specifying /dev/hda2 as the root fs like I did with RIP). I looked in my lilo.conf and everything seemed valid. Any ideas what is wrong with my LILO setup? I don't know quite enough about the linux boot process to really diagnose things. I assume I'm using RIP linux's initrd when booting from the CD, so maybe my initrd is somehow messed up?
Best Answer
Looks like it might be a hard disk issue. Use a boot disk (UBCD?) to run disk diagnostics. You could also use a Linux rescue disk to attempt to access the filesystem and verify the configuration.
System was working before, right? If so, have any changes been made to the system recently?