FC4 not booting w/ message "ERROR opening /dev/console!!!!: 20"
 

A few days ago, I formatted my hard drive and installed Win Me and FC4 in a dual-boot configuration. I was experiencing some application freeze-ups, so I decided to upgrade the kernel to the latest edition (2.6.12-1.1398, I believe) using up2date. After the upgrade, I shut down my computer. The next day, I turned it on, and it booted into FC4 without any problems. When I rebooted, the computer started to load up, then froze at this point:

Uncompressing Linux... Ok, booting the kernel
Red Hat nash version 4.2.15 starting
ERROR opening /dev/console!!!!: 20
error dup'2ing fd of 0 to 0
error dup'2ing fd of 0 to 1
error dup'2ing fd of 0 to 2
/bin/sh: ro: No such file or directory
kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

Note: Those exclamations are the computer's, not mine.

I tried pressing escape, enter, and CTRL+ALT+DEL, but nothing happened; the cursor just kept blinking after "kill init!". Then I tried pressing enter at GRUB and booting with the original kernel, but I got exactly the same message. Windows loads without a problem, though.

The day before, I had deleted and recreated my swap partition (see thread http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=353965) so I could create a shared, vfat partition, but I don't think that has anything to do with this, because it booted without any problem multiple times.

What can I do to get my system going again?

My phone line went haywire and in diagnosing the problem, I had to reinstall Windows (and therefore Linux), so the the error message is of course not appearing now. At least the problem is fixed!;)

Hello,

Did you ever find a solution to the problem you posted?

I'm having the same problem.

Sorry, tinat. When I realized I had to reinstall both OSes, I decided not to pursue the solution anymore. You might want to start your own thread, though, because there are a lot of smart people here who can almost definitely help. Good luck! :)

Re: FC4 not booting w/ message "ERROR opening /dev/console!!!!: 20"
 

....any new solutions/cognitions to this problem?
had the same error after updating kernel to 2.6.13-1*
1.) unable to found root, so I edit fstab. changed from LABEL= to /dev/....
2.) the above message
-> 2.6.12 works fine!.....????????????

Sorry, overlord, but I never found out what caused the problem. :( Other bugs w/ my computer forced me to reformat before I solved it. I recommend starting your own thread; there are a lot of experienced people here that can help. Sorry I couldn't help! Good luck. :)