I just recompiled the 2.4.20-9 kernel to include acpi and such. The only proble I have run into is when I boot the new kernel I get this error near the end.

VFS: Cannot open root device "LABEL=/" or 00;00
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 00:00

My partition set up on this laptop is as follows.
1st partition is Windows XP
2nd partition is a fat32 shared partition
the rest of the drive is autopartitioned by Red Hat 9

My Grub.conf file looks like this

title Red Hat Linux 9-Shrike (2.4.20-acpi)
root(hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-acpi ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-9.img
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img
title Windows XP Ho
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

I know I am so close to successfully compiling my own kernel, but I have obviously screwed something up with Grub. Any kernel gurus out there have an idea where I went wrong?

try this

kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=/dev/hda3 hdc=ide-scsi

if this does not work you may have a problem with the kernel, most likely in the Filesystems section

Thanks David. I got the partition info for my drives and changed the grub.conf settings to hda5 and it worked!!!

I now have ACPI and wi-fi support. My custom kernel booted with only one error. It says during the mount phase of boot that ext3 support is not enabled in the kernel. Yet I can see and write to all my linux partitions. So the new question is, should I recompile again and see if I can fix the no ext3 thing, or is it not important?

it's pretty important to me, but ext2 is a good file system. The problem is if the system suddenly goes off or hangs without shutting down properly then the filesystem can be damaged. Also fsck will need to check and repair the disk when it boots. ext3 is ext2 with a journal file that keeps track of disk writes. This makes it boot much faster and reduces the chance of a problem.

You should build support for ext3 in the kernel and not as a module.

Quick addition to the topic: I am using RH 9 and attempted to recompile my kernel with P4 and my i8k (Dell Laptop) support and the recompile process seemed smooth. I rebuilt my image using bzImage and made the initial boot image (mkinitrd). However, it gets to a specific point and panics. From pausing the screen several times, it looks as if the ext3 module died (showing dozens of unresolved symbol errors)... I hate to use a stereotyped answer, but... I didn't touch it! *grin*

I tried using /dev/hda2 instead of / for the boot path, but still no go. I also attempted to add init=/bin/sh without success.

I'm gathering that the failure is causing the ext3 module to not load at all... thus, not seeing those partitions.

Any ideas?

Thanks!!

-David