[solved] missing /dev/root file

[Lord_Pyro]

Question: How can i make/rebuild the "/dev/root" file

Background: I had two installations of PCLOS-KDE installed, up to date, and perfectly working. I installed Debian 6.0 onto a separate partition. After the installation it installed grub 2. after that i could not get either pclos install to boot. when using a remastered usb drive and a live cd, the "setup boot system" in pcc showed no operating systems in the auto populated list.  I installed pclos on yet another partition and at that time it showed one of the previous installs and my windows install.  After installing and verifing the new install would boot, I corrected the grub code, for the now visible previous install, to boot the pae kernel and removed the "resume=" section as it had previously caused issues hanging the boot process. now it gives me a kernel panic stating it cant find the file /dev/root. I have gone in a looked from the third pclos install and verified the file is indeed missing.

System info: Lenovo g580- intel i3, 6gb ram, 750gb hd (partitioned as follows:1)master boot record 2)Windows8-120gb 3)Windows7-120gb 4)pclos-320gb 5)pclos-32gb 6)debian6.0-50gb 7)pclos-new, working install-31gb 8)swap-12gb 9)lenovo recovery-22gb)

[Old-Polack]

Question: How can i make/rebuild the "/dev/root" file

Background: I had two installations of PCLOS-KDE installed, up to date, and perfectly working. I installed Debian 6.0 onto a separate partition. After the installation it installed grub 2. after that i could not get either pclos install to boot. when using a remastered usb drive and a live cd, the "setup boot system" in pcc showed no operating systems in the auto populated list.  I installed pclos on yet another partition and at that time it showed one of the previous installs and my windows install.  After installing and verifing the new install would boot, I corrected the grub code, for the now visible previous install, to boot the pae kernel and removed the "resume=" section as it had previously caused issues hanging the boot process. now it gives me a kernel panic stating it cant find the file /dev/root. I have gone in a looked from the third pclos install and verified the file is indeed missing.

System info: Lenovo g580- intel i3, 6gb ram, 750gb hd (partitioned as follows:1)master boot record 2)Windows8-120gb 3)Windows7-120gb 4)pclos-320gb 5)pclos-32gb 6)debian6.0-50gb 7)pclos-new, working install-31gb 8)swap-12gb 9)lenovo recovery-22gb)

Your error message is the result of an error within the initrd image that compliments the boot kernel, or a failure to load the initrd image through an error in the boot stanza used. The /dev/root is the temporary root device used by the kernel while initiating, before switching to the installed / partition at the end of the process.

[kjpetrie]

The symptoms you describe are the result of two errors. On is the UUIDs being changed by the subsequent installs repartitioning the disc. The resume error is the big clue there. Run blkid to find out what the current UUIDs are and then edit the appropriate menu.lst to use the correct ones (or use labels instead or revert to the old-fashioned /dev/sdxn notation).

The second is an inconsistency in changing which kernel boots. (This is what O-P has already flagged up.) Check the initrd.img entries in menu.lst match the vmlinuz entries and that the symbolic links in /boot also point to matching versions.

Finally, once the install is working again, you should run mkinitrd to ensure the initrd is fully consistent with the installed system. (Read the man page on mkinitrd for the syntax if you need it.)

[Lord_Pyro]

thank you for your assistance. the issue was a stray character in the root=uuid section, as well as a couple of missing variables. All is well and booting

thanks again