Kernel panic - not syncing:VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block (1,0)
 

Hello everyone!
I'm running Gentoo Linux, and tried to compile the kernel from r7 to r6. Now when I boot into the newer kernel it throws the kernel panic message.

No filesystem could mount root, tried:reiserfs ext3 ext2 msdos fuseblk jfs vfat iso9660 ntfs. Kernel panic - not syncing:VFS:Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block (1,0)

And here is my grub menu.lst:

default 0
timeout 30
splashimage=(hd0,2)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title=Gentoo Linux r6
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-gentoo-r6 root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc ramdisk=8192$
title=Gentoo Linux r7
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/kernel-genkernel-x86-2.6.17-gentoo-r7 root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc$
initrd /boot/initramfs-genkernel-x86-2.6.17-gentoo-r7

title=Win XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

I've been trying to get this to work for a day now and I'm all out of ideas. Thanks in advance! :)

IS your /boot on a seperate partition ??

No, I have currently one S-ATA disk, and it is partitioned like this: hd(0,0)=Win XP, hd (0,1) swap, hd (0,2) root, hd(0,3) /home. My root and /home are both in ext3.

Try changing the root=/dev/ram0 to /dev/sda3

And also if that dont work get rid of all those options after the kernel make it will make it easier to debug

After I changed the root=, it threw another, different error;
Root-NFS: No NFS server available, giving up.
VFS: Unable to mount root fs via NFS, trying floppy.

Well, gotta try to remove the extra boot option thingies.

Edit: Removed them all, and no change happened. The error stayed as above ^

ok sounds to me that you havent enabled the correct options for your file system in your kerenl conf. Hav a look.

Allright, I tried enabling every SATA-controller in the kernel, but it still doesn't work! It still whines about that it can't mount root fs, although i've checked every ext2 and ext3 box in the filesystem screen.

Hi all. I am getting the same error when updating from 2.6.18-r6 to 2.6.20-r7 (gentoo sources). I checked my .config for the new sources and my file systems are already compiled into the kermel. help please.

it must be grub issues then. Are you specifying root=/dev/sda7 or similar in kernel opts line in grub.conf ??

I think I found the problem. The new kernel sources have support for SATA in a new location from the old sources. I went and checked NVIDIA SATA (for my Motherboard) and recompiled. Everything works great now.

Tnx It works fine
 

Yes exactly NVIDIA SATA SUPPORT .

Thank you! I was having the same issue and about to put my head through the wall :]

hardware malfunction
 

Hi. I had the same problem and finally figured out that it was a bad RAM item. After replacing it everything went good.
You need to run Memtest86 at start up and find if it is the issue.