> devfs enabled, devfsd configured. my working kernel also uses devfs.
>
> i thought it was irrelevant though. before root is mounted, there is no
> /dev to look up device numbers anyway. the kernel has its own rules and
> it successfully decides /dev/hda11 is 03:0b but since the ide driver
> didn't find the hardware it's useless.
The dmesg output you quoted seemed to indicate hda was found and
contains 11 partitions (I assumed you had copied that down from the
console, not posted the log from a working boot). I know the kernel has a
builtin device name to number translation but I'm not sure how devfs mixes
with that.
Michael
