Re: Kernel panic!

Quoting Githin Alapatt <[email protected]>:

> Hi,
>
> I was on Ubuntu (the first ubuntu cd, dont remember what version it was) and
> I did a dist-upgrade. And now I cant boot, The error says,
> Please append a correct "root=" boot option.
> VFS: Kernel Panic - not syncing. Wrong partition /dev/hda2 or wrong block
> (0,0)
>
> As far as I know, the problem is like this:
>
> The MBR is not on /dev/hda (0,0). It is elsewhere. But my grub looks there
> for the MBR. It was working well till I did the dist-upgrade.
> And the grub paramenters have changed. The command did not backup the old
> grub configuration.
>
> Guess I have to reinstall my OS(!)
> I can access my old filesystem by running a live cd and mounting /dev/hda2
>

Githin,

First of all apologies for the long delay. Hope you have not reinstalled your
OS.

To me it seems your system has a problem with the initrd image.

On both the 2.4 and 2.6 kernels, after running make modules_install, run
mkinitrd:

# mkinitrd -o /boot/initrd-2.4.25-new-kernel.img

This builds the image and installs it into the /boot directory. Then create your
boot loader entires. In GRUB:


title      Kernel 2.4.25, new kernel
root       (hd0,1)
kernel     /boot/bzimage-2.4.25-new-kernel root=/dev/hda2 ro
initrd     /boot/initrd-2.4-25-new-kernel.img


If you are using LILO this is the entry to make,

image=/boot/bzimage-2.4.22-new-kernel
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.25-new-kernel.img
label= Kernel 2.4.22, new kernel
root=/dev/hda2
read only

Please remember to run /sbin/lilo to activate the changes.

And don't forget to read the "man mkinitrd" ;-)

Hope this helps.

-- 
Vivek Varghese Cherian
Free as in Freedom <www.gnu.org>