waiting for root filesystem

[ramsey haddad]

Hello,

sometimes when I boot my machine (dell inspiron 530), ubuntu seems to get stuck on "waiting for root filesystem" phase.

I do a ctrl+alt+delete turn off the computer and turn it back on and it then works fine.

$> uname -a
Linux ubuntu 2.6.24-18-generic #1 SMP Wed May 28 20:27:26 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

thank you

[ramsey haddad (ramsey-haddad)]

Any plans on fixing this bug?
The trick of turning it off doesn't work all the time. sometimes I have to do that step of ctrl+alt+del and power off 4 to 5 times for it to work.

Please let me know how to collect the data needed such as logs that would help in determining and fixing this bug.

Don't underestimate this bug. You are talking about a bug that makes the system very unreliable. I don't want a system that boots when it feels like it and gets stuck the rest of the time. even windows doesn't do that.

This is not a hardware problem, my computer is new and windows works fine.

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

There hasn't been any recent activity in this bug report and we were wondering if this is still an issue? The Ubuntu kernel team is actively working on the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. If you could please test the latest Alpha release for Intrepid it would be much appreciated - http://www.ubuntu.com/testing . Please let us know your results. If the issue still exists, please also provide the appropriate debugging information as outlined at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies . Thanks in advance.

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

The Ubuntu Kernel Team is planning to move to the 2.6.27 kernel for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. As a result, the kernel team would appreciate it if you could please test this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. There are one of two ways you should be able to test:

1) If you are comfortable installing packages on your own, the linux-image-2.6.27-* package is currently available for you to install and test.

--or--

2) The upcoming Alpha5 for Intrepid Ibex 8.10 will contain this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. Alpha5 is set to be released Thursday Sept 4. Please watch http://www.ubuntu.com/testing for Alpha5 to be announced. You should then be able to test via a LiveCD.

Please let us know immediately if this newer 2.6.27 kernel resolves the bug reported here or if the issue remains. More importantly, please open a new bug report for each new bug/regression introduced by the 2.6.27 kernel and tag the bug report with 'linux-2.6.27'. Also, please specifically note if the issue does or does not appear in the 2.6.26 kernel. Thanks again, we really appreicate your help and feedback.

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This particular bug has already been reported and is a duplicate of bug 153702, so it is being marked as such. This bug still needs testing with 2.6.27.* kernel which is to be included in next intrepid alpha 5 testing release. If you want to contribute, your feedback is appreciated. Note that this particular bug might take many reboots before it re-appears, so don't hesitate to really use your computer before giving feedback.

If you don't use other operating system on your computer, a temporary workaround is to enable "RAID mode" instead of "IDE mode" in your BIOS options. But be careful, changing BIOS options can give your more trouble than solutions if options are not changed properly.

[ramsey haddad (ramsey-haddad)]

Thank you all for your help, Yes it's unclear whether this is a BIOS/"Computer Manufacturer" problem or a linux kernel problem.
I've had this problem when running Debian, Ubuntu and Fedora.
passing the argument noirqdebug to the kernel seems to have fixed this problem for both of Ubuntu and Fedora. I no longer use Debian but I suspect noirqdebug would have worked for it as well.
As for the option of setting the SATA mode from IDE to RAID did work for linx, but I can't use it since I also have Windows XP installed. it freaks out on the RAID mode :/

For the lazy, Solution: pass noirqdebug argument to the kernel