[CentOS] Re: Kernel panic kickstarting to CentOS 4

Mon Feb 5 22:42:17 UTC 2007
Scott Silva <ssilva at sgvwater.com>

Cynthia Kiser spake the following on 2/5/2007 1:50 PM:
> I have an older server I am trying to update to CentOS 4.3 but I can't
> get to the installer screen because the machine kernel panics when
> booted from the install CD. The error message I get is:
> 
> Kernel panic - not syncing: include/linux/smp_lock.h:25
> 	spin_unlock(kernel/sched.c:c035) not locked
> 
> The boot messages before this point are mainly to do with acpi
> including: 
> 
> acpi_ps_parse_anl
> acpi_?s_one_complete
> ...
> acpi_early_init
> start_kernel 
> Kernel panic ....
> 
> At a guess, I tried starting the installer with the options: 
> 	linux text acpi=off noprobe
> 
> I am not really clear on what part of the boot process is failing so I
> tried a number of random boot options including apm=off, noapic, apic,
> nomce. Nothing I tried change the error. (I also tried installing RHEL
> 4 but I got the same failure with less informative error reporting:
> Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill the idle task!)
> 
> I also tried changing my BIOS options - changing the interupt mode
> from APIC to PIC which, if I understand the manual correctly, seems to
> be AMIBIOS's version of turning off Plug and Play. Same error. 
> 
> Can anyone tell me what sort of thing is going wrong? Is the
> smp_lock.h stuff for dual processors? The motherboard I have would
> support 2 processors, but I only have one installed so don't see why I
> am in SMP code. Is there something I can do to get CentOS 4 to
> install? The only thing I can think of I haven't tried is to update
> the BIOS - mostly because the instructions are not very well
> translated so I am not completely sure how to use the Dual BIOS
> feature to roll back if the new BIOS version creates more problems
> than it solves.
> 
> Hardware: 
> 
> Motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-7VRXP
> http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Spec.aspx?ClassValue=Motherboard&ProductID=1762&ProductName=GA-7VRXP
> CPU is a single AMD XP2100+ 
> Disk is a normal IDE Maxtor
> Memory 3 G of DDR SDRAM
> 
> I can install CentOS 3.8 on this machine just fine, but I would like
> to move to CentOS 4 because that is what my beefier database machines
> are running (or will when I get the rest of them upgraded).
> 
> Thanks for any help folks can give me. 
First thing... The motherboard in the link does NOT support 2 processors. Did
you send wrong link?

Did you try installing with less memory?

See if you can boot from the 4.4 live CD.

-- 

MailScanner is like deodorant...
You hope everybody uses it, and
you notice quickly if they don't!!!!