[Sussex] Strange grub behaviour

[John D.]

Rupert Swarbrick wrote:

>> I'm getting the same reply about it not seeing the /dev/hda3 as the root
>> block device.
>>
>> So, I've then unmerged grub and emerged lilo just in case I'm being
>> really blind about something.
>>
>> I've then "done the usual's" and when I reboot, I get the lilo options
>> screen fine, but when I boot the 2.6.11-gentoo-r8 kernel I'm just
>> getting the same reply.
>
>
> Could you send us exactly what the error message is? It might be that
> someone on the list recognises it, or we might be able to find it in the
> kernel sources to find exactly what causes the kernel to complain.
>
> The good news is that the only problem is in the kernel, and that's
> usually not too hard to fix.
>
> Rupert
>
> P.S. I am shooting in the dark a little, as I've never used the gentoo
> build system (can someone else help here??), although I've played quite
> a bit with kernel compilation when getting software suspend to work on
> the laptop (I reckon ~25 different compiles to get the flipping options
> right!)
>
Oakey Doakey,

the "error" is as follows:

>> Block device /dev/hda3 is not a valid root device...
>> The root block device is unspecified or not detected.
       Please specify a device to boot, or "Shell" for a shell..

boot () ::

and that's the lot, it then just sits there and will do nothing else.
Thats the same error message irrespective of whether I use grub or lilo.

regards

John D.

p.s. erm also could someone remind me how I make the system start in a
GUI mode? I've set the inittab at 5, the boot dialogue says it's
starting at run level 5 but then just drops me into a CLI login.