Bug#293481: kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686: Cannot open root device

[Nigel Stephens <nigel@mips.com>]

Package: kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686
Version: 2.6.8-12
Severity: normal

My current 2.6.6 kernel boots and runs OK on my Toshiba Tecra S1
laptop. But when I try to boot the 2.6.8 (or 2.6.10) kernel the
bootstrap fails early on like this:

  RAMDISK: Loading 4540 blocks [1 disk] into ramdisk... done.
  VFS: Mounted root (cramfs filesystem) readonly.
  VFS: Cannot open root device "hda5" or unknown-block(0,0)
  Please append a correct "root=" boot option
  Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)

At that point the console freezes (shift pg-up doesn't work) until the
kernel eventually reboots.

Here are the relevant /boot/menu/grub/menu.lst entries:

  title		Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.8-2-686 
  root		(hd0,4)
  kernel	/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8-2-686 root=/dev/hda5 ro panic=60 
  initrd	/boot/initrd.img-2.6.8-2-686
  savedefault
  boot
  
  title		Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.6-1-686 
  root		(hd0,4)
  kernel	/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.6-1-686 root=/dev/hda5 ro panic=60 
  initrd	/boot/initrd.img-2.6.6-1-686
  savedefault
  boot

Here is the output from fdisk /dev/hda:

  Disk /dev/hda: 30.0 GB, 30005821440 bytes
  240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3876 cylinders
  Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes
  
     Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
  /dev/hda1               1          17      128488+  83  Linux
  /dev/hda2   *          18        2320    17410648+   7  HPFS/NTFS
  /dev/hda3            2321        2456     1028160    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
  /dev/hda4            2457        3876    10735200    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
  /dev/hda5            2457        3805    10198408+  83  Linux
  /dev/hda6            3806        3876      536728+  82  Linux swap
  
I hope you can help, as I really want to be able to use a more kernel
to see if it fixes some of the ACPI problems which I have with 2.6.6.

Thanks

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.6-1-686
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)

Versions of packages kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686 depends on:
ii  coreutils [fileutils]         5.2.1-2    The GNU core utilities
ii  fileutils                     5.2.1-2    The GNU file management utilities 
ii  initrd-tools                  0.1.77     tools to create initrd image for p
ii  module-init-tools             3.2-pre1-2 tools for managing Linux kernel mo

-- no debconf information