Submitter: Thad Floryan CentOS username: Thad Date: 10-September-2008 Updated: 11-SEP-2008, new symptom same problem on another desktop Overview: CentOS 5.2 Live CD fails booting on modern desktops but boots/loads/runs OK on old laptops. Google search finds same problem occuring since (at least) Fedora Core 7, many Ubuntu distros, and even Fedora 10 Live CDs. Symptoms: The following messages appear at several stages during booting the Live CD on several desktops; they do not appear booting on several laptops: "pnp: PnPACPI: METHOD_NAME_CRS failure for PNP0c01" "WARNING: Cannot find root file system! Create symlink /dev/root and then exit this shell to continue the boot sequence." "mount: special device /dev/root does not exist Bug in initramfs /init detected. Dropping to a shell. Good luck!" New symptom (11-SEP-2008) same no-boot problem: The following two messages appeared on yet another desktop upon which I attempted to boot a CentOS 5.2 Live CD: "PCI: BIOS BUG: MCFG area at e0000000 is not E820-reserved" "PCI: Not using MMCONFIG" This desktop subsequently failed as my others do as described below in the "Problem setup ... display" section, but a Google search reveals the cause of the above two messages was supposedly fixed in February 2008 per: and and could be ignored. Given others' experiences with a full install of CentOS 5.2, the problems with booting a Live CD strongly suggest there's a kernel (or module thereof) difference between "live" and a full install. As I wrote in the the Yahoo linux forum: This is a shame, because I would think many people would want to test drive a Live CD before committing to a full install, and a failure with a Live CD could/would sour someone on the distro. 'Sfunny, I've never really used Live CDs before (simply doing a full install for over a decade now), but when I desired to install Solaris 10 on "some" system, I downloaded/burned a check_install bootable ISO from Sun and took that with me to stores when I was seeking a modern 64-bit system to purchase. That pleasant experience (buying a system I knew would work even if its parts weren't in Sun's HCL (Hardware Compatibility List)) is what induced me to try CentOS' Live CD before a full installation. The only aspect of the (to be Solaris) system that was flagged by the check_install CD was the Ethernet interface, and check_install supplied the URL at which to get the 3rd-party driver for it; that was nice. Computer systems: Two Compaq Presario SR5501F desktops. One of these successfully triple-boots and runs Fedora 9, Solaris 10u5, and Vista SP1. The other successfully double-boots and runs Ubuntu 8.04 and Vista SP1. These systems will not successfully boot the CentOS 5.2 Live CD. Full system details in Appendix 1. One Compac Presario SR5350F desktop. Presently boots Vista SP1 and I want to double-boot into CentOS 5.2 and Vista SP1 after verifying successful booting of the CentOS 5.2 Live CD; it will not boot the CentOS 5.2 Live CD presently. Full system details in Appendix 2. Several Dell Latitude C510/C610 laptops (Pentium III M, 1.2 GHz). All of these boot and run the CentOS 5.2 Live CD successfully. Problem setup and example annotated booting progress display: I downloaded the CentOS-5.2-i386-LiveCD.iso late last week wanting to "play" with it prior to installation of CentOS-5.2-i386-bin-DVD.iso after determining at least some hardware compatibility before doing a full install. The md5sums of the downloaded ISOs checked and I then burned a Live CD from its ISO. On several new desktop systems (all introduced since Feb. 2008) it looked like it was booting fine, a grub menu was presented, and I selected the "Live" option. But it stalls claiming the root filesystem cannot be found and, later, that it found a bug in initramfs. Here's the complete boot display after the grub selection: [...] Loading vmlinuz0 ......... Loading initrd0.img ........ Ready Memory for crash kernel (0x0 to 0x0) notwithin permissible range pnp: PnPACPI: METHOD_NAME_CRS failure for PNP0c01 udev[454]: add_to_rules: unknown key 'ATTRS{media}' #-- The "Memory for crash kernel ..." and the "udev[454]: add ..." #-- also appear during my laptop's boot; the "pnp: PnPACPI ..." #-- does NOT appear on any laptop which boots fine beyond this point. #-- Below is the remaining sequence for a desktop Live CD boot -------------------------------------- WARNING: Cannot find root file system! -------------------------------------- Create symlink /dev/root and then exit this shell to continue the boot sequence. bash: no job control in this shell bash-3.2# #-- And here's where it all ends; obviously there's no /dev/root in #-- the desktop's memory image. After my laptop boots and I login, #-- its /dev/root is symlinked to /dev/mapper/live-rw #-- #-- There is no /dev/mapper in the desktop's live image and there are #-- no entries in /dev for a CD or anything else meaningful at this #-- stage, so I exit the shell to see what happens: bash-3.2# exit mount: special device /dev/root does not exist Bug in initramfs /init detected. Dropping to a shell. Good luck! bash: no job control in this shell bash-3.2# Some thoughts about the problem: Recommendations in the Yahoo linux forum suggested I prepare this report and submit it to CentOS. This report is duplicated here: Several people in the forum believe the problem may be related to SATA devices. All the desktops have either one SATA and one PATA hard disk or just one SATA hard disk; all of them have a SATA CD/DVD/DL drive. The several Dell laptops that boot the Live CD successfully have only one PATA (aka EIDE) 2.5" hard disk and an unknown interface CD/DVD drive. On suspicion of the Live CD itself which was burned at 40x, I reburned a new Live CD at 8x from a different system, but the problem remains. One person in the Yahoo linux forum claims a successful installation of CentOS 5.2 on a new quad core system with 4GB RAM, but he never attempted a Live CD boot and has not revealed whether his HDs and/or CD/DVD drive are SATA or PATA. Another person having the identical boot problem with Fedora 10 wrote the following at fedoraforum.org: " I fired off a bugzilla on it, but they can't figure out where " to even put it at this moment. Looks like I've created a whole " new genre! and " Then I get this something saying to create a symlink so I try " typing something like this ln -s /dev/root /isolinux/ and " that's when this pops up bug in /initramfs /init detected. Appendix 1, Compaq Presario SR5501P Desktop PC (two systems): Motherboard: Asus M2N68-LA HP/Compaq motherboard name: Ivy8-GL6 Base processor: Athlon 64 X2 (B) 4200+ 2.2 GHz (65W) Socket: AM2 Chipset: NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 BIOS: Award (Phoenix Technologies, LTD 5.14 05/02/2008) VIdeo: onboard NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE RAM: 4 GB DDR2 PC2-6400 LAN: NVIDIA nForce 10/100 Mbps Networking Controller Hard drive 1: 160 GB SATA 3G (3.0 GB/sec) 7200 RPM Hard drive 2: 320 GB PATA (Maxtor) 7200 RPM Optical drive: 16X DVD(+/-)R/RW 12X DL LightScribe SATA drive One system triple-boots Fedora 9, Solaris 10u5, and Vista SP1; the other system double-boots Ubuntu 8.04 and Vista SP1. Neither system will successfully boot the CentOS 5.2 Live CD. Both systems successfully boot a OpenSolaris Live CD, a Vista Live CD (PE), and a Solaris Install Check CD. The system description of one, from a Solaris 10 point-of-view, is here: Appendix 2, Compaq Presario SR5350F Desktop PC (one system): Motherboard: Asus IPILP-LC HP/Compaq motherboard name: Lancaster8-GL6 Base processor: Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2180 2 GHz (65W) Socket: 775 Chipset: Intel 945GC Express BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. 5.19 03/04/2008 Video: PCI-Ex16 NVIDEO GeForce 8600 GT 1GB (onboard Intel video disabled) RAM: 2 GB DDR2 PC2-5300 LAN: Realtek RTL8101E 10/100 Mbps Hard drive 1: 360 GB SATA (3.0 GB/sec) 7200 RPM Hard drive 2: 320 GB PATA (Maxtor) 7200 RPM [not yet installed] Optical drive: HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GSA-H60L ATA Device (SATA) System presently boots Vista SP1, and also successfully boots all of OpenSolaris Live CD, Vista Live CD (PE), and a Solaris Install Check CD. The system will not boot a CentOS 5.2 Live CD. This is the system upon which I wish to double-boot CentOS 5.2 and Vista SP1. *end*