System Hangs on first boot (720 Degrees)

Hi there, I tried to install 720 on my Jornada and whenever I try to boot into it, the system just hangs telling me that it "Cannot open initial console". I tried with both Sarge and Etch bases to get it working, and am using kernel 2.4.32-j720-10 with version 3.0 of Windows CE. And I followed the 720 Degree website's instructions to the letter installing it.

Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong? The last thing that's echo'ed by the boot loader is:

Trying to move old root to /initrd ... okay 
Freeing init memory: 72K 

Warning: unable to open an initial console. 

 

*hang*

Though I can still suspend, and it gives me a nice little "Suspending!" message.

I am having the same problem....

You copied the files to the compactflash card wrong. Format it, and copy with the tar xjvf -C (folder it is mounted at). Unfortunately, if you do not, you will get that error. (permissions, most likely, but too complicated to fix rather than just redoing the install).

All I can say is, the instructions are there for a reason.

Taken straight from the website http://stevenwiki.homedns.org/720/:



Though thanks for your help. You should however, pay attention when someone says "And I followed the 720 Degree website's instructions to the letter installing it.", because it was because I followed the instruction to the letter that it didn't work.

Also, with those parameters, tar xjvf gives me a kernel panic at boot.

Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 00:ff

I even tried using cfdisk to reformat the EXT2 partition.

No chance of getting any help with this, huh? Why is it that the only H/PC Support Forum for linux that I can find, is also the least active site on the internet? It's bizzare...

Hold on, hold on. Take into account that everyone on the team has about 10 minutes of free time every day for this stuff until we are done with school finals. I try to keep on top of these posts, but as you realized, I get behind.

First thing, cfdisk does not format partitions. It only creats them. You need to use mkfs.ext2 to format the partition.

Tell me exactly what you did, and in what order. I do things a short way:

make partitions
format card - mkdosfs /dev/sdb1, mkfs.ext2 /dev/sdb2 (your partitions are probably different)
mount /dev/sdb2
tar xjvf 720degrees-debian-sarge-base.tar.bz2 -C /media/usbdisk1 (your locations will be different)
mount /dev/sdb1
copy all my stuff to /media/usbdisk

That is my way. Now, what did you do? Of course, there is always a possibility that your problem is based on the distribution you used, and whether you were root or not at the time. Tell me as much as possible, and I will give you an A for effort.

Ok, after some sleep, I've gone through my posts and realised that I was being a bit of a tool. Sorry.

I'll try your instructions without root (I'm using Ubuntu Breezy btw), and if that fails, I'll try again with sudo.

Thanks for you patience, I sometimes forget that people have lives outside of the internet. Bizzare, I know.

The thing is, if it does not work as sudo, I would do it completely as root. If I were you, I would make sure that my download is not corrupted.

i have exactly the same problem.... the last 3 lines are:

VFS: cannot open root device"" or 00:ff
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 00:ff

I did all the steps according to your webpage......
the memory card was formated and the files copied to it using BackTrack 3.0 (slackware distro) as root.

Please help....
sorry for my english...

Are you trying to use kernel 2.6?

Even if you are not, I guess this is worth a try. Put root=/dev/hda2 on the last line of your params.txt - I guess it could be on a line of its own.

Edited by ProgramSynthesiser 2006-08-01 6:45 PM

It is neccessary to reset the 720.
After install the CF reset your jornada with disconnect the ac power the backupbattery and the main battery.(It resets the ram), then restart the jornada and start your boot program linexec or hpcboot or anything else
After this my debian was on the jornada screen))

Lol...your situation is rather rare - I don't have that kind of a problem. Maybe you have some CE app run on startup that is weird or something, but even then...

Who tell me what is 03:02 error???
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:02

I think your disk is totally screwed.