FC3 install fails

Scott A. Zanke zank at zank.com
Sat Apr 30 11:24:03 UTC 2005


On Fri, 2005-04-29 at 20:37, Rick Stevens wrote:
> Scott A. Zanke wrote:
> > Hello,
> > I can't get FC3 to install. I am currently running FC1 on this box and
> > have run RH7.3, 8 and 9 on it.
> > Athlon 1Ghz, 768MB ram, TNT2 graphics card, Linksys LNE 100TX V5 nic,
> > FC1 on HDB and Windows 2000 Pro on HDA using GRUB.
> > I tried linux ide-nodma and the media check runs fine.
> > Once Anaconda starts things get ugly. Tons of fast scrolling text most
> > of which I believe says Bad Page State then it ends with..
> > VFS: cannot open root device "(null)" on unknown-block(8,3)
> > Please append a correct "root=" boot option
> > Kernel Panic - not syncing: VFS: unable to mount root fs on
> > unknown-block(8,3)
> > I've been digging through the archives but haven't found anything that
> > relates.
> > Any ideas?
> 
> Well, I'd suggest the first thing is to open your box and reseat your
> RAM and all of your PCI cards (pop them out and stick them back in).
> I suggest this because bad page errors are often caused by questionable
> RAM or cards that are freaking the PCI bus out.  Reseating the cards
> ensure it's not just grungy connectors causing problems.  I've fixed
> many a system just by doing that.
> 
> Next, boot the first CD and run memtest86 to test the RAM you have.
> Windows doesn't flog RAM the way Linux does, and the 2.4 kernel in FC1
> is easier on it than the 2.6 kernel in FC2/3.   If the RAM passes, then
> try to do the install again.
> 
> If none of that does the trick, try a "noapic" option.  If that fails,
> try a "noapic" text install.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> - Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
> - VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
> -                                                                    -
> -         The world is coming to an end ... SAVE YOUR FILES!!!       -
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks Rick,
I did what you suggested as far as reseating the pci cards and ram and
had the same problem. I looked at the ram with a windows application and
saw I had a CL2 and two CL3's installed. I removed the CL2 and the
install started fine but aborted while reading packages. I backed down
memory settings in the bios and ran memtest86 overnight with no errors.
I'll try again this morning.

Scott




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