Re: boot problems - initrd

HI Jeremy,

>> There's alot of information here... thanks :) Can you give us a little
>> more? Dual or single cpu, kernel version? Filesystem layout, contents
>> of fstab?
>
> Single CPU (Intel PIII 800mhz). I'm guessing from the 'kernel' line that
> my kernel version is "vmlinuz-2.4.7-10". It is the one that came with RH
> 7.2 Pro retail box. I haven't upgraded or modified anything.

oaky..

> I'm not entirly sure of my file system layout. (I'm a relative newbie,
> unsure about devices and file systems still) I'm using RAID 1 on two
> SCSI drives. It was setup by the installer during the install process
> and I assume it usues all the defaults. I don't know the layout of
> fstab. The machine is remote (co-located in a data center), and I have
> no way of copying/pasting or saving that information from the server.
>
> I also took a look in /var/log/boot and all the recent files were blank.
> Nothing ever got written to them.
>
>> Have you tried uninstalling grub and running lilo? (make a backup of
>> grub.conf first)
>
> No, I haven't tried this. I'm not sure how to go about this. I don't
> have the lilo files on CD or floppy disc. Since I'm stuck in rescue
> mode, the network isn't up (can't download them).

Use the bootdisk to boot with, should get you back into runlevel 3.
If you don't have one, use the mkbootdisk utility to make it. (Really,
this should have been done during install... very important.)
mkbootdisk --<kernel version> --<mkinitrdargs (if needed)>

> What I don't understand is why all of a sudden it would stop working.
> Prior to this, the machine was working fine. How could adding "single"
> to the end of the line cause all of this?

It shouldn't, really. File corruption happens from time to time though....
that's why we make backups. :)

> Would the installer fix my fstab, or maybe my grub.conf file?

It should. You might be able to fix it by reinstalling grub or installing
lilo. You have a pretty hot machine there though, so why not go to psyche?
I've heard (don't know) that a lot of apps run a lot faster because
they're compiled with gcc-3.0.x.

> Regards,
>         Jeremy

Good luck

-- 
Keith Mastin
BeechTree Information Technology Services Inc.
Toronto, Canada
(416)696 6070