You can look at what is happening just before the kernel panic by looking above it on the screen. Sometimes you need to pass the kernel parameter "acpi=off". At the boot menu press "e" Goto the kernel line and add "acpi=off" to the end of it, with a space before it.
This one is hard to read by the kernel output. It it usually because the root filesystem isn't loading, but since you have two distros, which both do the same thing, it is possible you have the wrong root device specified in the "kernel hd(0,1)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 acpi=off" line in /boot/grub/menu.lst.
Don't copy the line exactly, make adjustments for which actual partition you are supposed to be using. That particular line is for disk 0, partition 1. Disks start at 0. Partitions start at 1. hd(0,1)=/dev/sda1=/dev/hda1.
If the error has no such file or directory before it, you might have a bad initrd image, or your root filesystem isn't loading for some other reason.
It is impossible to say exactly what the problem is without knowing the few preceding lines during the boot.
Grub uses the /boot/grub/menu.lst file, which was installed last. That one is the one grub will look for. That is the one to edit. Here is what an entry menu.lst looks like:
title some-linux-distro 2.x.y
kernel hd(0,1)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 acpi=off
initrd hd(0,1)/boot/initrd
savedefault
boot /dev/sda1
or
title some-linux-distro 2.x.y
kernel hd(0,2)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda2 acpi=off
initrd hd(0,2)/boot/initrd
savedefault
boot /dev/sda2
There are other variations. If you are using a 2.6.8 kernel, the root device has an "s", like sda1. If 2.4 kernel, the root device has a "h", like hda1. You can take a boot cd:
http://www.efense.com/helix
and use the environment to fix the machine if you can't figure out what to put in the grub menu editor at boot up. Remember, when you edit entries at boot, they don't stay that way. You have to go into "/boot/grub/menu.lst" and put the change there after successful boot.
When you boot from a helix cd, all the partitions on your hard drives are in "/mnt". You have to type "mount sda1" in a shell prompt to be able to see, and edit the contents. Helix mounts ro by default, so you have to go into "/etc/fstab" and change the "ro" to "rw".
I will try to keep track of this post. If you still have trouble, reply.
