On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 09:09:03PM -0700, Mark Phillips wrote:This was the command I was thinking of.
> Or, do you mean
>
> update−initramfs -u
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:> > according to [1][3]debian.org.
>
> 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
> >> References
> > 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.
>
>
> Visible links
> 1. mailto:mark@phillipsmarketing.biz
> 2. mailto:mailinglist@darac.org.uk
> 3. http://debian.org/