[Fedora 11] / can't be mounted when booting after converting from ext3 to ext4

[lovetide]

Problem solved: The initrd.img file need to be regenerated.
See #3 posted by cenomanien.
Thanks cenomanien!

_____________________
I upgraded F10 to F11 successfully. Then I convert the / partition filesystem by the following steps:

1. login as root user in multi user mode
2. read http://ext4.wiki.kernel.org/index.ph...system_to_ext4, and execute
   tune2fs -O extents,uninit_bg,dir_index /dev/mapper/VolGroup01-LogVol00
   
3. modify /etc/fstab, change the type of / to ext4
   
4. ========== reboot ==========
   (because fsck say running it on a mounted filesystem can cause filesystem damage, so i decide to reboot to single user mode first. maybe it's a mistake here)
   
5. try to boot F11 to single user mode, failed
   
6. ======== reboot from a SystemRescueCD-1.2.0 LiveCD ======
   
7. run e2fsck -fpDC0 /dev/mapper/VolGroup01-LogVol00 in SystemRescueCD-1.2.0 LiveCD, no error reported
   
8. ======== reboot ======
   
9. try to boot F11 normally(multi user mode), but it failed at: EXT3-fs: dm-0: couldn't mount because of unsupported optional features (40).

I tried rescue mode of Fedora-11-i386-netinst.iso after these steps above. The / partition can be found and mounted to /mnt/sysimage correctly. I can read/write files in / partition, and i can even yum new softwares in rescue mode, but it just can't be mounted when booting.

[Iron_Mike]

At this point in time the /boot file system has to remain ext3 as feodra's grub doesn't know how to deal with the ext4 file system yet.

Mike

[cenomanien]

Hello,

I would think that the existing /boot/initrd-2.6.xxx.img does not support reading ext4.
Try regenerating the /boot/initrd-2.6.xxx.img file from rescue mode of Fedora-11-i386-netinst.iso, after you chroot to your / partition.

[bike_head]

Can anyone point to a instructions/howto on generating a new init image from rescue? I got into this exact same situation.

[lovetide]

Originally Posted by Iron_Mike

At this point in time the /boot file system has to remain ext3 as feodra's grub doesn't know how to deal with the ext4 file system yet.

Mike

I didn't convert the /boot partition, I only converted the / partition.

Originally Posted by cenomanien

Hello,

I would think that the existing /boot/initrd-2.6.xxx.img does not support reading ext4.
Try regenerating the /boot/initrd-2.6.xxx.img file from rescue mode of Fedora-11-i386-netinst.iso, after you chroot to your / partition.

THANK YOU cenomanien, you saved my F11! After regenerate the initrd-xxxx.img file, it can boot successfully now:

#boot from Fedora 11 DVD or netinstall disk into rescue mode,
# and google how to regenerate initrd.img in another computer,
# and regenerate initrd.img file...
chroot /mnt/sysimage
cd /boot
mv initrd-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i586.img initrd-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i586.img.bak
mkinitrd initrd-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i586.img 2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i586

some information about my F11 (didn't know the initrd.img can be regenerated before.) i got an ext4 filesystem finally

[root@printer-test boot]# df --print-type --human-readable
Filesystem    Type    Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup01-LogVol00
              ext4    5.2G  2.7G  2.4G  54% /
/dev/sda1     ext3    190M   17M  164M  10% /boot
tmpfs        tmpfs    124M     0  124M   0% /dev/shm

[root@printer-test boot]# ll initrd-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i586.img initrd-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i586.img.bak
-rw-------. 1 root root 3317295 2009-06-17 07:40 initrd-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i586.img
-rw-------. 1 root root 3298840 2009-06-12 20:13 initrd-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i586.img.bak

[root@printer-test boot]# md5sum initrd-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i586.img initrd-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i586.img.bak
a3134cb44508c893d14aead968d5f474  initrd-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i586.img
e55275992944b28e2630d9547f1d89c8  initrd-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i586.img.bak

[srbdivb]

Whew this saved my bacon too! I had done my /home without problem, when I tried doing my / I ran into this exact problem. I was pretty worried when I first saw the error... don't know why I doubted google and the fedora community!!

[muteki]

Thanks! Regenerating initrd fixes my problem also.