Re: kernel panic

[Shaul Karl <shaulk@actcom.net.il>]

On Sun, May 23, 2004 at 06:59:39PM -0700, developer@wexwarez.com wrote:
> I am dual booting xp and linux on a single harddrive.  I got both booting
> with xp controlling the mbr and I added my linux grub bootsector to the xp
> boot.ini in order to get linux to boot.  I installed debian off the sarge
> net install cd using the 2.6 kernel.  The kernel that came with it runs
> fine, but I compiled and installed a new kernel and it will not run.  When
> I boot to it, it complains :
> VFS: Cannot open root device "hda3" 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)
> 
> By the way:
> /dev/hda3 is /
> /dev/hda6 is boot
> 
> The auto generated boot options in grub are as follows(the top two work,
> the bootom don't):
> 
> title           Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.5-1-386
> root            (hd0,5)
> kernel          /vmlinuz-2.6.5-1-386 root=/dev/hda3 ro
> initrd          /initrd.img-2.6.5-1-386
> savedefault
> boot
> 
> title           Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.5-1-386 (recovery mode)
> root            (hd0,5)
> kernel          /vmlinuz-2.6.5-1-386 root=/dev/hda3 ro single
> initrd          /initrd.img-2.6.5-1-386
> savedefault
> boot
> 
> title           Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.5
> root            (hd0,5)
> kernel          /vmlinuz-2.6.5 root=/dev/hda3 ro
> savedefault
> boot
> 
> title           Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.5 (recovery mode)
> root            (hd0,5)
> kernel          /vmlinuz-2.6.5 root=/dev/hda3 ro single
> savedefault
> boot
> 
> 
> Might this have something to do with the no initrd option?


  Probably. I assume that 2.6.5-1-386 is the installation kernel and
2.6.5 is the one you compiled. How did you compiled your kernel? In
particular, were you using the --initrd flag?


> I thought debian boot loaders used the whole vmlinuz vmlinuz.old scenario,
> is there a way to make this work?


  With grub the vmlinuz vmlinuz.old scenario is named differently. While
the default kernel installation with lilo used the new kernel and the
most recent one, the default kernel installation with grub is using the
new kernel and up to 6 of the previous ones. You might want to take a 
look at /boot/grub/menu.lst.

-- 
"If you have an apple and I have  an apple and we  exchange apples then
you and I will still each have  one apple. But  if you have an idea and I
have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two
ideas." -- George Bernard Shaw     (sent by  shaulk @ actcom . net . il)