[CLUE-Tech] Debian 3.0r1, rescue mode from CD 1

[David Anselmi]

Keith Christian wrote:

[...]

> When I type "linux rescue" at the boot: prompt of CD-1, I get the normal
> screenfuls of dmesg info, then it says:
> 
>     "Kernel panic: vfs: unable to mount root fs on 3a:05"
> 
> I'm expecting a stand alone rescue mode to appear.  To test some other
> utilities (gpart, for example) I zeroed the first 512 bytes of /dev/hda, so
> passing in an argument like "root=/dev/hda2" isn't applicable to this
> situation.

I think you're expecting the wrong thing.  IIRC, debian's rescue mode 
isn't intended to be a stand-alone sort of thing.  It's intended to boot 
the system when you've messed up your boot sector or kernel.  So it 
boots from the CD and uses the CD's kernel with your root partition.

Try "linux rescue root=/dev/hdaX".  root= is applicable, the rescue 
kernel needs to know what to use for root.  That's what the kernel panic 
tells you.

I'm not sure debian's rescue mode is terribly useful (as of 3.0). 
Perhaps just to go into single user it might work better than what I've 
tried.  If you want a stand-alone rescue system, there's always Knoppix.

Dave