installation hangs

[Richard Hall <hall@ns.utk.edu>]

I am trying to install linux on a machine that had NT on it.  Using the
rescue disk and the boot parameters "rescue aic7xxx=no_reset" gets me to
where the kernel finds the hard drive, but when it does the partition
check, it hangs with this error:

Partition check:
 sda: sda1 sda2 < sda5 >
[MS_DOS FS Rel. 12, FAT 0,check=n,conv=b,uid=0,gid=0,umask=022,bmap]
[me=0x0,cs=0,#f=0,fs=0,fl=0,ds=0,de=0,data=0,se=0,ts=0,ls=0,rc=0,fc=429...]
Transaction block size = 512
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 01:00

I haven't formatted the hard drive.  Should I?  Is there a debian floppy
that will let me do that, or do I need to scrounge up a DOS floppy?  Is
the kernel looking for a root file system on the hard drive?  If so, how
do I tell it to expect in elsewhere, like on root.bin?

Thanks

Richard Hall
Network Services
University of Tennessee