Kernel panic after "Performing switch root..."

Booting, installing, newbie
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Antipodal
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Thanking Shep & explaining some facts

#21 Post by Antipodal »

Thank you for your message, Shep
You wrote:
Antipodal wrote:In that paragraph, "alt.2600" is a hyperlink. And just because I became curious about what the alt.2600 newsgroup was I clicked on it.
Since then my computer has behaved as if it were crazy.
I used to read that newsgroup on and off. If you opened only text messages I doubt that you would have picked up any malicious linux code there, but of course one never knows.
Please, remember I'm almost a computer illiterate.
I clicked on that link while I was using my XP OS and though I'm not sure if you can pick up a malicious linux code doing that, I' have no doubts about having picked up malicious MS W XP code there.
You wrote:
“Performing ‘switch root to the layered file system…Kernel panic – Not syncing: Attempted to kill init
Posting from a P4 3Ghz_ASUS P5G41T-M LX3_2G RAM_DVD Write desktop with no internal HDD
Saving my stuff on flash sticks and in external USB HDD

Shep
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Location: Australia

#22 Post by Shep »

Maybe the very first suggestion should have been to clean your CD. Perhaps there is a spec of dust, marker ink, bubble gum, greasy fingerprint, cockroach frass, mould, gravy, cheese, custard, tomato sauce, etc., etc., :lol: :lol: that is interfering with the read.

To determine the md5sum, open a terminal MENU >UTILITY> RXVT or similar
and type: md5sum /dev/cdrom
or whatever your CD drive is called.

I think you said that other distros run okay, so that sort of rules out loose RAM cards.

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jyore
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#23 Post by jyore »

Which versions on Puppy have you tried? I have had trouble booting Puppy on some i586 processors(which all Pentiums are, hints the pente-) for whatever reason (probably something in the kernel is optimized to i686 for some reason). When I had this problem, I have had it fail with the same error you experienced "failure to switch-root..." and it went into Kernel Panic.

Puppy 4.3.0 I do know for sure works on a i586 processor, maybe try that?

Shep
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#24 Post by Shep »

jyore wrote:Which versions on Puppy have you tried?
OP's story is that the live DVD used to boot on that 'puter, but for no known reason it stopped working. Nothing was changed.

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jyore
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#25 Post by jyore »

Ah, ignore that last bit then :P

Come to think of it, I think I was thinking of a different error anyway.

When I had the switch-root stuff, I think there was some corruption of the puppy save file. I was doing a USB install, and it seemed to happen when I used the "Save to Partition" option rather than the "Save to File" option.

Not sure if his problem is going to be the same thing, however...

nooby
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#26 Post by nooby »

I should not really suggest things because I know too little but due to experience the OP should try to boot with pfix=ram.

He should stop the booting sequence by hitting the right thing .

Sadly I don't remember but Beem and others maybe remember.

Booting with pfix=ram allow him to find out if the pupsave files is the cause of the change of behavior.

I would recommend to try the Lin'nwin method.
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

Shep
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#27 Post by Shep »

nooby wrote:the OP should try to boot with pfix=ram.
That's a good idea, nooby. You're right, a corrupted .2fs will cause that too, I now recall. Jyore similarly agrees.

So, antipodal, you should watch the start up and when prompted hit <F2> key then type puppy pfix=ram to cause puppy to start anew without loading your personal save file. If this works, get back to us here. And if it doesn't, also come back and let us know. 8)

Antipodal
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Location: The other side of the world

Thank you for your help Shep,nooby & jyore!!

#28 Post by Antipodal »

I regret having taken so long to answer.

In the attachment I roughly describe what occurred when I first tried to boot my desktop with the same Puppy Linux DVD that worked in my computer and works on a friend's notebook
Attachments
Booting with Puppy Live DVD.GIF
(51.79 KiB) Downloaded 1167 times
Posting from a P4 3Ghz_ASUS P5G41T-M LX3_2G RAM_DVD Write desktop with no internal HDD
Saving my stuff on flash sticks and in external USB HDD

noryb009
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#29 Post by noryb009 »

Ok, so it's not picking up the DVD.
1) Is the CD drive able to play that type of DVD? (I did this once...)
2) Do you have the BIOS changed for DVD first?
3) Did you try selecting the boot medium? (F8 on my computer)

Antipodal
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Thank you for your time noryb009

#30 Post by Antipodal »

To question Nº1
As I have said in some of my previous posts this DVD has worked perfectly in this computer during 9 months and it still works in a friend’s notebook.
Because I was told that this problem could have been caused because the driver’s firmware was outdated, I updated it some time ago but the problem continued.
Because I was told that this problem could happen if the drive was not working correctly, I changed the old drive for a brand new one... and I didn’t solve the problem.

To question Nº2
Yes

To question Nº3
I don’t understand what you mean by that, so I’ll try to enquire what that is before answering this question.

Shep
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Re: Thank you for your time noryb009

#31 Post by Shep »

Antipodal wrote:To question Nº1
As I have said in some of my previous posts this DVD has worked perfectly in this computer during 9 months and it still works in a friend’s notebook.
Sometimes settings change of their own accord and for no known reason. :evil: :evil:

So just because you in the past set it to first try to boot from the DVD does not mean it still is set that way. :twisted: Your spreadsheet shows the computer is not succeeding in booting from the DVD. If it were, it should not have ended up in Windoze.

So recheck the bios settings, to ensure it tries to boot from the DVD before the HDD. If you are not sure how to do this, ask here.
To question Nº2
Yes
It appears the correct answer now may be No. :lol:

Booting with your CD in the drive, the behavior you are describing now (smoothly booting into Windoze) is quite different from what you reported at the start of this tread (getting partway into Puppy and then halting). So it is getting worse. :shock:

Have you got any other bootable CD or DVD (Puppy or Ubuntu) that you can try, just to prove (to us) that it will boot from a bootable DVD when one is present? :P

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jyore
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#32 Post by jyore »

I have to agree with shep here...from your report, it does not seem to be trying to boot from the DVD at all. This could be a problem with the DVD being read and/or the BIOS booting that media. Please verify your BIOS settings as a sanity check for you and us. As shep said, settings can change, especially when you updated to a new BIOS version.

If it is successfully booting, I believe the DVD light would continue to be on/flash during boot up and it would need to be spinning most of the time until the OS is loaded to RAM. So if this is not happening, I'm pretty sure you will always end up with the Windows logo.

I'm assuming you never got a chance to try the "puppy pfix=ram" boot command since it would seem that the DVD is not running at all now. I still feel that your original Kernel Panic problem was do to a corrupt puppy save file and not actually the hardware or DVD, even though it now seems to be hardware or BIOS related.

To clarify noryb's question No.3, there should be a key you can press at the BIOS screen, that takes you to a boot menu. There is usually one key that goes to the BIOS setup, and the other that goes to the boot menu. He was asking if you have pressed that key, and tried selecting DVD directly. If it doesn't boot when selected directly, or if it doesn't show up at all, it would narrow down the possible causes of the issue.

Additionally, have you or can you try a fresh DVD (with a DVD type that you have verified works with your DVD player...test with a CD or movie or something) and/or a bootable USB drive?

Antipodal
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Shep & jyore: Thank you both!

#33 Post by Antipodal »

Shep said:
Booting with your CD in the drive, the behaviour you are describing now (smoothly booting into Windoze) is quite different from what you reported at the start of this tread (getting partway into Puppy and then halting).
Yes Shep, you are right, that’s what I’ve been trying to say ever since on Sun 07 Mar 2010 17:08 when I posted:
Post Subject: Picking up the thread
Subject description: I return to the problem, describe changes and ask for feedback
Gentlemen:
After 37 days since my last post, some things have changed:
a) Though Puppy's Live DVD has been most of the time loaded on the optical disk drive tray and this device has always been set as the first boot priority at the BIOS System Setup, it’s a long time since I’m not receiving screen messages related to Puppy and the system always starts up with Windows XP.
b) Regarding Flash’s question I have contacted and received additional information from Nero AG (the developers of the software that was used to burn the DVD I've been talking about).
Their last message says:
"I have analyzed the log that you have sent us; I can now tell you that the disk is not a multisession disc.
An image file was recorded to a DVD. This DVD has been completed; therefore you cannot add more information to it.
...
With this specific document you have sent us, we can tell you that this is not a multisession disc. An image has been copied to the disk. The resulting disc was a boot disk because the image contained a boot disk."
Because you both asked me to verify my BIOS settings I’ll do it again. But this time I’ll do it with a copy of the file with the BIOS settings I attached to the post I made in this thread on Mon 08 Mar 2010, 19:35 in my hand. If I find the slightest difference with it I’ll let you know.

Jyore said:
I'm assuming you never got a chance to try the "puppy pfix=ram" boot command
He’s right.

If I didn’t misunderstand him, he thinks that my original Kernel Panic problem was due to a corrupt puppy save file.
I really don’t know what puppy save file is, so I’ll do my homework studying about them.

Jyore:
Thank you for clarifying noryb’s question Nº3.
I only have one computer that works, and it’s the one who won’t boot Puppy, and I’m currently using it with XP to write this post. As far as I can recall, my BIOS screen doesn’t work with F8, it has six tabs (Main, Advanced, Security, Power, Boot and Exit) and you navigate them using the right & left arrow from the keyboard and there’s nothing in the screen that’s labelled boot medium. If it plesases you, you can take a look at the BIOS’ file attached to the post I made in this thread on Mon 08 Mar 2010, 19:35 and perhaps you will find its equivalent. I suppose it’s Boot/Boot Device Priority, but I'm not sure.

Shep said:
Have you got any other bootable CD or DVD (Puppy or Ubuntu) that you can try, just to prove (to us) that it will boot from a bootable DVD when one is present?
The answer is no. And (answering jyore) I neither have a bootable USB drive.

Regarding jyore’s
“Additionally, have you or can you try a fresh DVD (with a DVD type that you have verified works with your DVD player...test with a CD or movie or something)...?
Attachments
Samsung OEM DVD drive.GIF
(33.83 KiB) Downloaded 1069 times
Posting from a P4 3Ghz_ASUS P5G41T-M LX3_2G RAM_DVD Write desktop with no internal HDD
Saving my stuff on flash sticks and in external USB HDD

Shep
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Location: Australia

#34 Post by Shep »

Is there anything worth keeping in your puppy file on the hard drive? I ask because, as soon as the problem is finally solved (say, about Xmas 2012 at this rate :lol: :lol: ) the first thing I'll suggest is that (if there is nothing of great value) you delete it and burn a DVD with a newer version of puppy and start afresh. :P
So if there is nothing you want to keep that you've ever created or downloaded in puppy, you could use windoze to find the file on the hard drive where puppy stuff is saved. (It's loosely known as the puppy save file, but goes under various names according to the puppy). The one common feature is that it will have the second part of its name .2fs
Don't delete it right now, just determine where it is, its name and size.

Antipodal
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Can't stop LOL

#35 Post by Antipodal »

:lol: :lol:
Shep wrote: I ask because, as soon as the problem is finally solved (say, about Xmas 2012 at this rate :lol: :lol: )
:lol: Can't :lol: stop :lol: LOL :lol: :lol: :lol:

Antipodal
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Location: The other side of the world

Answering Shep and asking.

#36 Post by Antipodal »

I don’t recall having ever created or downloaded something important or that is worth keeping in my hard drive while I was using Puppy from RAM (Live DVD).

As soon as I recovered from my laughing fit I used windoze’s search tool to search my hard disk (all files [including hidden files] and folders [including system and hidden folders]) for files with .2fs or *.2fs in its name but no results were found.

:?: Is it possible that in the confusion that arose after I clicked the wrong link on December 2009 (see http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=51906) some code in the firmware and/or in the software of my computer got corrupted and that’s what’s keeping me from using my live CD and/or computer as before? :?:

Best regards

PS (Dec 1 2010 22:14 UTC-4): The red fonts were left only for words I added on this edition.
PS (Dec 1 2010 22:48 UTC-4): Trying to make the last paragraph clearer.
Last edited by Antipodal on Thu 02 Dec 2010, 02:48, edited 4 times in total.

noryb009
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#37 Post by noryb009 »

If you have never booted into Puppy Linux, you will not have a .2fs file.
(also check for a .3fs, just in case)

Antipodal
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Joined: Thu 26 Mar 2009, 16:52
Location: The other side of the world

Replying noryb009

#38 Post by Antipodal »

After noryb009’s last post neither.3fs nor.3fs files were found in the hard disk.
noryb009 wrote:If you have never booted into Puppy Linux, you will not have a .2fs file.
If I'm wrong please correct me but I think it's impossible to use Puppy Linux without booting it.
And as I said in my first and second posts to this thread, I have used Puppy Linux in this computer, hundreds or thousands of times from March to December 2009 without problems.
Regards

Shep
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Joined: Sat 08 Nov 2008, 07:55
Location: Australia

#39 Post by Shep »

The puppy save file would be named something like pupsave-412.2fs or at least something.2fs and it's unlikely that you don't have one. To have used puppy many times, yet still not have a personal save file, you would have had to set up keyboard, video resolution, time zone, etc., every time you used the live CD.

While cleaning out unwanted puppy files, I suggest you look for any files on your hard drive ending in .sfs and delete it/them. They shouldn't be the problem, but once they are eliminated we can be sure they aren't meddling where they are not wanted.

Next, let's start afresh at this point: have the DVD in the drive when you switch on, and as soon as you see the first puppy screen where it says you have 10 seconds to press <F2> ... then

press <F2> and at the prompt type in puppy pfix=ram and hit enter and tell us what happens after that. No need to copy it word for word, we know only too well the various permutations that can result, we just need to know which one you experience. :wink:

Also, I don't think you answered when I asked is there any reason why you can't use windows to download a current version of puppy and burn it to a DVD?

Antipodal
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Joined: Thu 26 Mar 2009, 16:52
Location: The other side of the world

Answering Shep's last post

#40 Post by Antipodal »

Dear Sir:
Thank you for your time and for your comments.
I have found three main subjects in your last post.

Regarding the first subject I must say that following your request I’ve searched for .sfs files in my hard disk and found that the only file with that ending is PUP_412.SFS
That doesn’t seem strange to me because I’m sure that from the first to the last time I used Puppy, every time I was done with it, I clicked on the following path:
Menu-->Shut Down-->Power off-computer
And when the Puppy screen with the following message appeared
You have booted off a live-CD or DVD, and you can now save your personal settings and files to a USB Flash drive, Zip drive, floppy disk, or any hard drive partition (including NTFS). The session will be saved as a single file, named pup_save.2fs, which has an ext2 filesystem inside it.

However, if you have burnt the CD/DVD as multisession (not closed), then sessions can be saved as additional tracks to the CD/DVD -- each saved session will appear on the CD/DVD as a directory with all the saved files in it, not as a single file. THIS IS STILL EXPERIMENTAL

Select <SAVE TO FILE> (just press ENTER key) to choose a partition to save the session as file pup_save.2fs...
Select <SAVE TO CD (TAB then ENTER) to save session to CD/DVD (multisession) (Experimental)...
Select <DO NOT SAVE> to shutdown without saving session...
I’m almost sure I always chose the <DO NOT SAVE> option because I feared mixing things of two different OS.
On the other hand, I’m almost sure that each time I shifted from XP to Puppy I had to choose the mouse I would use, I’m absolutely sure I had to choose the keyboard layout, between Xorg and Xvesa, and the video mode. I’m also absolutely sure that each time I shifted from XP to Puppy I had to use the Internet Connection Wizard until a sign that said
NETWORK CONFIGURATION OF eth0 SUCCESSFUL!
The configuration was not saved for next boot.
If there are no more interfaces to setup and configure, just click done to get out
appeared, and that when this happened I always clicked on Done

Regarding the second subject, I apologize :oops: for not knowing how to emphasize enough something that I have explained in previous posts (Sun 07 Mar 2010 17:08 and Thu 25 Nov 2010 14:07):
Since the first days of February 2010, with the DVD in the drive, when I switch on the computer, the Puppy screen doesn't appear.
Instead of that, one of these two things occur:
a) The system boots smoothly into XP
b) The system starts booting into XP but suddenly shuts down


Please, :oops: excuse me for insisting, but the screen that should say
Puppy Linux 4.1.2

Just wait 5 seconds for normal startup!
Or if you need particular boot options, type puppy then a space, then each boot option. Some boot options:

acpi=off Default on for PCs>2001, may give boot/shutdown probs.
loglevel=<n> Bootup verbosity. 7 is high verbosity for debugging.
pfix=ram Run Puppy totally in RAM ignore saved sessions,
pfix=<n> number of saved sessions to ignore (multisession - CD),
pfix=nox commandline only, do no start X,
pfix= copy copy pup_xxx.sfs to RAM (slower boot, faster running),
pfix=noram do not copy pup_xxx.sfs to ram (Puppy may override ),
pfix: fsck do filesystem check on pup_save ( and host part. if ext2),
pfix=clean file cleanup (simulate version upgrade),
pfix=purge more radical file cleanup ( to fix broken system),
pfix=rdsh for developers only ( initramfs shell),

Examples:
puppy acpi=off pfix=2 Ignore ACPI, blacklist last 2 saved sessions.
puppy pfix=nox, ram Run in RAM, do not start X.
is not appearing since the first days of last February!!!

Regarding the third subject
Shep wrote:Also, I don't think you answered when I asked is there any reason why you can't use windows to download a current version of puppy and burn it to a DVD?
In the first place I want to thank you for this question.
You made a good point.
Though you and others have made questions that are quite close to this one, none of them were put forward in these terms.
I once more apologize :oops: , but because the answer is rather complex and I must now meet some postponed obligations I will answer it in my next post.

Best regards.

Edition(4-12-2010):I corrected where it said 2009. It now says 2010
Last edited by Antipodal on Sat 04 Dec 2010, 20:24, edited 1 time in total.

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