Hi all,

I've reinstalled RedHat for many many times since 1999. Some of them I met
"Kernel Panic" error message just before the system boot into "SERVICE
start". I always don't know how to deal with it.
Usually the error message looks like these two types: 1),Kernel panic error,
try to add a "init=" option at startup.2), Kernel panic error, could not
mount /, try to add a "root=" option at startup.
I'm not very clear about what it means. I guess maybe something wrong with
the partition. I also tried to start RedHat with "linux init=3" or "linux
root=/dev/hda1" option. But nothing is useful for this. So I don't have any
idea about the solution and I have to reinstall again. When I reinstall the
system, I can't find any wrong with the partition. Everything seems to be
OK.
Please give me some suggestion about this "Kernel panic".

relax

there can be several reasons for a kernel panic. But you can always boot the system with a resue cd or floppy. Once you have booted, you can try to undo the things you have done to cause the kernel panic.
A kernel panic never just apears. You have to have done somthing to cause this.
The next time you have a kernel panic (lets hope never ) just tells us that you did prior to this panic and the people on this form will do the best they can to help you correct the mistake. Also, it's a good idea to post you exact error message.
If you don't have a rescue disk, it's a good idea to make one. See this site.

I recently encoutered a kernel panic because my initrd wasnt loading the ext3 modules(needed to mount my ext3 filesystem ) properly and the kernel couldnt mount the root partition successfully. From all the research I did to solve this problem, I found out that most kernel panics are caused by the inability of the kernel ( because you upgraded your filesystem but forgot to include support or you configured your boot loaded to pass the wrong root device to the kernel or some other screwup on your part apart from hardware failure ) . We know PC class hardware is not very reliable at all, but on the overall it seems to be improving.. but that apart the panic is caused usually by an action on the user side.

When you do something sensitive like upgrade the kernel or mess around with the boot loader, be sure to back up the original conf files and also to find a way to revert like filesystem migration that you did. Have a bootdisk / rescue CD handy so that you can mount the root filesystem, chroot to it and put things back in place. Well, that's about all one can do, I guess.

Hi,

Thank you so much for your help!
I've got another question. What is the "Rescue CD" you mentioned? Does it mean that I boot with Installation_CD_1 and type "linux rescue"?

right

after that your system will be mounted in /mnt/sysimage

you can run it by doing this

chroot /mnt/sysimage

then do what you need to do to fix it

If you have another system where you can create a root disk download this:

www.toms.net/rb

Or install another version of RH