SUMMARY: cannot mount root

From: Oscar Goldes (ogolde@impsat1.com.ar)
Date: Tue Aug 05 1997 - 13:28:39 CDT


Original question:
--------------------
I have (or had!) a sparc machine with solaris 2.5, disks mirrored with
disksuite 4.0.

After a crash, the machine does not boot again. Says it cannot mount root

Following the procedure to boot from the mirror device, it wont booot:
I type, at the ok prompt

ok boot /iommu/sbus/espdma@5,8400040/esp@5,8800040/sd@3,0
( the root mirror)

I get:
cannot mount root on /pseudo/md@0:1,blk fstype ufs
panic: vfs_mountroot: cannot mount root.

I get the same, no matter if I append ":a,raw" to the boot command, or if I
use the primary device (.../espdma@5,8400000/esp@5,8800000/...) instead

I cant boot from the net, either: to the command
ok boot net

I get:

...
hostname:bacalao
whoami: no domain name
root server: orca
root directory: /cdrom/Solaris2_5_sparc/so/export/exec/kvm/sparc.Solaris_2.5
panic - boot: could not mount filesystem
.....

the CD is in the servers'CDROM, the specified directory exists on the CD
and the CDROM is shared.

Please help me!

-------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks to:

Kris Briscoe
Blake Benton
and others

-------------------------------------------------------------
Solution:
Actually, this was two problems at the same time

1) First, I had to correct the host manager setup at the network server to
allow to correctly boot from the network. I had to check the option "allow
remote install" (I still dont know why)

Next I booted with "boot net" from the ok prompt at the crashed machine.

This started the long process of Solaris installation, which must be
aborted as soon as it gives the option to do so (after system identification)

That left me at a root prompt, in single user mode.

(the crashed machine did not have a CDROM, and there was none at hand)

2) I manually mounted the old root filesystem (/dev/dsk/c0t3d0s0) on a
suitable place (/tmp/xx)

3) I edited /etc/system (actually /tmp/xx/etc/system) and commented out (*)
the rootdev:... line

4) I edited /tmp/xx/etc/vfstab and replaced all the /dev/md... stuff by the
old /dev/dsk/c0txdxsx.... ( actually I rcp'd the whole vfstab from a
similar machine)

5) After rebooting, it is OK. I have not had time to try to rebuild the
mirroring system yet.

Again, thanks to the list!



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