# boot hangs at "Remounting root filesystem read/write"

## jody

Hi

I just finished installing gentoo 2.6.29-r5 on my computer, exactly following the gentoo handbook-x86.

After the first reboot, everything appears normal, until :

```
* Checking root filesystem ...

/dev/sda3: clean, 237151/9699328 files, 854084/19394471 blocks       [ok]

* Remounting root filesystem read/write ...
```

And here it hangs, the HD-activity light being constantly on (constant disk activity?)

The disk seems to be in order: when i boot again with the gentoo CD,

i can mount /dev/sda3 without a problem, and fsck /dev/sda3 gives the same result as above.

When i make a kernel with genkernel, again following the instructions in the handbook,

i have the same problem at the exact same point: after reboot, it hangs at "Remounting root filesystem read/write"

Does anybody know what could be the cause of this failure?

Maybe a missing driver?

I found a vaguely similar thing in gentoo bugs:https://bugs.gentoo.org/198601,

but there nfs seems to be an important part of the issue...

Thank You

  Jody

----------

## MaximeG

Hi,

Can you post : 

```
/etc/fstab
```

Thanks!

Maxime

----------

## jody

Hi 

This is my fstab:

```
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.

#

# noatime turns off atimes for increased performance (atimes normally aren't 

# needed; notail increases performance of ReiserFS (at the expense of storage 

# efficiency).  It's safe to drop the noatime options if you want and to 

# switch between notail / tail freely.

#

# The root filesystem should have a pass number of either 0 or 1.

# All other filesystems should have a pass number of 0 or greater than 1.

#

# See the manpage fstab(5) for more information.

#

# <fs>         <mountpoint>   <type>      <opts>      <dump/pass>

# NOTE: If your BOOT partition is ReiserFS, add the notail option to opts.

/dev/sda1      /boot      ext2      defaults,noatime   1 2

/dev/sda3      /      ext3      noatime      0 1

/dev/sda2      none      swap      sw      0 0

/dev/cdrom      /mnt/cdrom   auto      noauto,ro   0 0

# glibc 2.2 and above expects tmpfs to be mounted at /dev/shm for 

# POSIX shared memory (shm_open, shm_unlink).

# (tmpfs is a dynamically expandable/shrinkable ramdisk, and will

#  use almost no memory if not populated with files)

shm         /dev/shm   tmpfs      nodev,nosuid,noexec   0 0

# nfs mounts

#aim-cari:/raid1/home/jody   /home/aim-cari/jody          nfs     rw,hard,intr,nosuid,rsize=65536,wsize=65536    0 0

#aim-yeti:/raid1/home/jody   /home/aim-cari/jody          nfs     rw,hard,intr,nosuid,rsize=8192,wsize=32768,timeo=30    0 0

#aim-yeti:/raid2/morpho/ /morpho         nfs             rw,hard,intr,nosuid,rsize=1024,wsize=1024     0 0

#aim-yeti:/raid1/home/ /home/aim-cari    nfs             rw,hard,intr,nosuid,rsize=4096,wsize=4096     0 0

#aim-plankton:/mnt/data1  /mnt/data1       nfs             rw,hard,intr,nosuid,rsize=8192,wsize=32768,timeo=30    0 0

#aim-cari:/raid1/qhg1 /qhg1    nfs             rw,hard,intr,nosuid,rsize=2048,wsize=2048     0 0

```

(i copied the fstab from a working system which is identical to this one,

that's why there are some out-commented nfs entries there, too)

Additional observation: it does not completely hang, but takes a about 20 minutes to complete

"Remounting root filesystem read/write", but later it hung again when mounting an usb filesystem...

Thank You

  Jody

----------

## jody

More strange things:

- after about 90 minutes, the boot was complete, but /dev/sda3 was mounted read-only

- i then installed another OS (FC10) which worked perfectly

- i then installed gentoo again, and had the same problem again (hours until boot completes)

Is this a hardware problem? Or a driver problem?

Thank You 

  jody

----------

## Clad in Sky

Sounds strange. Have you tried with another kernel, like 2.6.28? 

Did you possibly forget to compile support for ext3 read/write in your kernel?

That's the only two things I can think of.

----------

## jody

 *Quote:*   

> Have you tried with another kernel, like 2.6.28? 

 

No, not yet. How can i get the source for an old kernel?

 *Quote:*   

> Did you possibly forget to compile support for ext3 read/write in your kernel? 

 

I would say so - under File Systems, these are the items i have:

```
  File systems  --->

   <*> Second extended fs support

   [*]    Ext2 extended attributes

   [*]      Ext2 POSIX Access Control Lists

   [*]      Ext2 Security Labels

   <*> Ext3 journalling file system support

   [*]    Ext3 extended attributes

   [*]      Ext3 POSIX Access Control Lists

   [*]      Ext3 Security Labels

   [*] Dnotify support

   [*] Inotify file change notification support

   [*]   Inotify suppport for userspace

   [*] Quota support

   [*] Network File Systems  --->

```

What is also strange: i have another computer which is identical

to the "faulty" one as far as the hardware is concerned, with the sole exception

that its HD is 500 GB instead of 250 BG. On this computer i installed

gentoo with the same CD and it works. 

Is it possible that this may be suble hardware fault which disturbs a gentoo driver,

but is ignored by the driver in FC?

Thank You

  Jody

----------

## jody

Hi

I have now acquired a new hard disk, installed gentoo again,

and now it boots normally. That's why i added "SOLVED" to the title.

The "?" i added because i still don't know how the symptoms i

experienced with the old HD can be explained:

- more than an hour for the boot process

- even then, all filesystems are mounted read-only

- no problems seen when installing Fedora & booting

Is there some explanation for this?

Thank You

  Jody

----------

## MaximeG

Hi,

The drivers are provided mostly by the kernel so, if you were using the same kernel versions for your Fedora core it's likely to be something else.

I'd lean for an option in your kernel config but .. it's really hard to say which one.

Anyway, it looks like it will be hard to discover it now you've discarded your drive. I'm glad for you it works now !

Regards,

Maxime

----------

