Dell T3500 Precision Workstation will not boot after an update from 10.04 to 10.10

Question

I'm having trouble booting ubuntu after upgrading to 10.10.

After the unexpected exit with status 0x0009 message, it said:

Gave up waiting for root device: common problems:
- Boot args (cat /proc/cmdline)
- check rootdelay = (did system wait long enough?)
- Check root = (did the system wait for the right device?)
- Missing moduloes (cat /proc/modules; ls /dev)
ALERT! /dev/disk/by-uuid/(some big name for my hard drive) does not exist. Dropping to a shell!
BusyBox v1.13.3 ...
(initramfs)

This thread describes the problem that many people are having with T3500 and Ubuntu 10.10.

I was able to boot an older kernel, but I'd like to get this working with the latest kernel.

working kernel uname -a reads Linux workstation 2.6.32-25-generic #45-Ubuntu SMP Sat Oct 16 19:52:42 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux

not-working kernel = 2.6.35-22-generic

Answer 1

It sounds like a driver needed for your root filesystem is missing. I would open a bug against the kernel (ubuntu-bug linux) and then try to narrow down what driver is in used with the old kernel that is missing for the new kernel. (Compare /proc/modules between the good kernel and the bad kernel -- you should be able to get the contents from the busybox prompt.)