On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 09:09:03PM -0700, Mark Phillips wrote: > Or, do you mean > > update−initramfs -u This was the command I was thinking of. Basically, "unable to mount root fs" usually means that the kernel (in conjunction with the initramfs) can't find your root file system. If you're using ext2 on a DOS-Partitioned IDE drive, then the kernel should be able to do that itself easily enough. So, other places to look are: Grub (does /boot/grub/menu.lst point to the right device. Check the root= parameter. Kernel 2.6.32 should be new enough that you want to say "/dev/sda1" rather than "/dev/hda1" EVEN for IDE drives), /etc/fstab (Again, either switch to /dev/sdaN or, much better, use LABEL=foo or UUID=bar to allow the kernel to find where those partitions are. The output of /sbin/blkid will help you determine UUIDs). > > Mark > > On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 9:07 PM, Mark Phillips > <[1]mark@phillipsmarketing.biz> wrote: > > Darac, > > It is a "normal" ext2 file system. A single IDE drive in an old Dell > workstation (Optiplex GX260). It has been running for many years with > successive kernels. > > Before I screw things up any more, is this what you are recommending > that I run from recovery mode? > > #dpkg-reconfigure linux-image-2.6.32-5-686 > > > > Thanks, > > > Mark > > On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 2:47 AM, Darac Marjal > <[2]mailinglist@darac.org.uk> wrote: > > On Tue, Oct 22, 2013 at 08:54:55PM -0700, Mark Phillips wrote: > > I ran apt-get update and apt-get upgrade this morning on an old > server > > (Debian Squeeze) and the system won't boot now. I get the error > > > > kernel panic not syncing: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown > > -block(0,0) > > > > One of the updates was to kernel 2.6.32-5-686. I can boot in to > safe mode > > with this kernel, and the upgrade wiped out the older version of > the > > kernel. > > > > I have googled for possible solutions, but nothing helpful is > popping up. > > I am also running grub, and not grub2, but that is OK for this > kernel > > according to [1][3]debian.org. > > > > Any suggestions on how to proceed? > > I would suggest that your first port of call is to update the > initramfs. > You haven't told us what your root filesystem is, though. If it's a > common filesystem on a regular partition, then you should be fine. But > if you've got RAID or LVM or anything exotic going on, then try adding > "rootdelay=30" to the kernel commandline, too. > > References > > Visible links > 1. mailto:mark@phillipsmarketing.biz > 2. mailto:mailinglist@darac.org.uk > 3. http://debian.org/
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