[SOLVED] ERROR: unable to mount the livecd Dropping you to a limited shell.

[TheRedeemer]

Ugh!  I'm stuck with v2009.1 on my Sony Vaio VGN-BX560B laptop.  livecd 2010 is bombing out.
--made sure the burn was good, installs OK on an older Dell test box, & tried different media
--tried all the different grub stanzas available for selection in the boot menu, same result
--tried noapic and nolapic
--stuck 2010 on a usb flash drive, but this Vaio's phoenix BIOS won't boot from flash drives.

Can't wait to be able to install and use PCLinuxOS 2010.

Thanks in advance for suggestions on getting this working... , forgive the flood, but here is what is on-screen as things go down-hill.  I'm including "dmesg.txt" as an attachment as well.
********************************************************************************************************
Using IPI No-Shortcut mode
registered taskstats version 1
BIOS EDD facility v0.16 2004-Jun-25, 1 devices found
input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard as /devices/platform/i8042/serio0/input/input0
md: Skipping autodetection of RAID arrays. (raid=autodetect will force)
RAMDISK: gzip image found at block 0
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) on device 1:0.
   Setting up kernel parameters: [OK]
   Restoring udev files: [OK]
   Creating ramdisk - usable memory (1020286/2040572/2072072kB) [OK]
   Creating 2.6 root filesystem (1020286/2072072kB) on /dev/shm: [OK]
   Making extra nodes: [OK]
Please wait: Loading driver for media adapter:

Texas Instruments |OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
Please wait: Loading driver for media adapter:

Silicon Image, Inc. |SiI 3512 [SATALink/SATARaid] Serial ATA Controller
Please wait: Loading driver for media adapter:

Intel Corporation|82801FBM (ICH6M) SATA Controller
Please wait: Detecting USB devices.
Please wait: Detecting USB mass-storage devices. [OK]

  Searching for the loop image:
      /dev/sda1
      /dev/sda2
      /dev/sda3
      /dev/sda5
      /dev/sda6
  [DONE]

ERROR: Unable to mount the livecd
    Dropping you to a limited shell.
  Loading /initrd/bin/ash
/initrd/bin/ash: can't access tty; job control turned off
$
********************************************************************************************************

[TheRedeemer]

Thought it might be useful to attach the dmesg output from 2009.1 that I do have installed.
An excerpt from the 2009 dmesg shows the CD-Rom drive being recognized, whereas I don't see anything like that in 2010:
******************************************************************
usb 7-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
ata3: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 310)
ata4: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 310)
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
scsi4 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
USB Mass Storage support registered.
usb-storage: device found at 2
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
scsi 4:0:0:0: CD-ROM            QSI      CDRW/DVD SBW-243 TS14 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
usb-storage: device scan complete
******************************************************************

[meph]

same here. also tried makeing an new image mit mylivecd. dint work as well.

made bootable usb with unetbootin und tried booting pclinuxos un my eeepc 1005pe.

[DeBaas]

During start up in the Grub menu go to Safe boot, push F6, go to Safe Settings, enter (twice)
just 2 cents
Ed

[TheRedeemer]

Hmmm, "Safe Boot" using "Safe Settings" doesn't resolve the issue.  Tried safe settings with the other boot choices as well, the issue remains.

[TheRedeemer]

SOLVED!, here's what worked for me:

--Copy file "livecd.sqfs" from the LiveCD to the root of a USB Flash Drive (mine had a 2 GB FAT partition)
--Insert BOTH the LiveCD AND the USB Flash Drive and reboot
--LiveCD begins to boot, has problem with the CD-Rom drive, so automatically scans for livecd.sqfs which it finds on the attached USB Flash Drive, and booting continues 

[Munto]

Holy brown nuggets, that's work !!!
Thank you for your help !!

I hope this will be corrected in future releases.

All the best

[DeBaas]

Try setting your CD/DVD player from SLAVE to MASTER om the seccond IDE port.

[slax]

This is not resolved/fixed yet :|

I bought an used sata I hdd, and attached it in addition to my sata II hdd, and i can't boot livecd...
same error...

i'll try this solution, and report back if it works...

[slax]

it worked, i needed to add livecd.sqfs to USB device

[Was_Just19]

Searching for the loop image:
      /dev/sda1
      /dev/sda2
      /dev/sda3
      /dev/sda5
      /dev/sda6
  [DONE]

It is failing to search the CD for the livecd.sqfs file for some reason.
The CD would normally be the first device to be searched.

Try setting your CD/DVD player from SLAVE to MASTER om the seccond IDE port.

That could be the answer to the problem ....

[slax]

I used live usb, not cdrom
so i had to copy .sqfs to livecd.sqfs on the same usb stick and it worked

[Was_Just19]

I used live usb, not cdrom
so i had to copy .sqfs to livecd.sqfs on the same usb stick and it worked

You had to copy which file from where to where?

Sorry, not clear exactly what you did .....   

[slax]

Live os on USB was named gnome.sqfs, i just made a duplicate named livecd.sqfs in the same location, in the root of usb stick.

I believe this happened probably because i added one sata I and one sata II hdds in my comp :|

[Was_Just19]

Live os on USB was named gnome.sqfs, i just made a duplicate named livecd.sqfs in the same location, in the root of usb stick.

I believe this happened probably because i added one sata I and one sata II hdds in my comp :|

Sounds more like a misconfiguration of the menu.lst stanza ...