Originally Posted by sundialsvcs

Here's an explanation of the problem, step by step:

"Kernel panic - " The computer has reached a point where it is unable to continue; it has no choice but to halt.

"- not syncing" "The good news is, I wasn't in the middle of trying to write un-saved changes to disk when I died." Linux tries to do this ("to sync the filesystem") just before it halts, and it's telling you .. albeit in a backwards sort of way .. that it succeeded in doing that.

"Unable to mount root filesystem" One of the first things that the kernel must do is to "mount" (make available) the "root" (that is, "/") file system. It could not do that.

"On unknown block(0,0)" This is the device-number (0) and the partition-number (0) of the device where the kernel expects the root filesystem to be.

Probable causes: (in order)

1. The most likely cause is that the root= parameter, which must be specified in the boot-loader's kernel command line, is incorrect or specifies the wrong device. You're supposed to be able to identify the device by label; I've never gotten that to work. I use something like root=/dev/hda1.
2. Boot-loaders like Grub may count partitions starting from #0; Linux counts them from #1.
3. Some distros use a complicated "initrd" mechanism to load disk drivers. If this process isn't working for your particular device, there can be grief.