I just installed Mandriva Linux LE 2005 on a seperate partition of my hard drive. Upon entering the boot loader if I choose 'linux' I get an error stating

"You passed an undefined mode number.
Press <RETURN> to see video modes available, <SPACE> to continue or wait 30 secs"

I didn't know what I was doing so I just selected a video mode. Whether it was right or not it started to boot up. During the boot-up I received another error:

"Kernel panic - not syncing: No init found..."

Anyways my understanding is that whatever occurs before this error is the cause of the kernel panic. Before the kernel panic I got a series of errors related to mounting the ext3 partitions:

"mounting root filesystem with flags noatime"
"mount: error 6 mounting ext3 flags noatime"
Then without the flags
"mount: error 6 mounting ext3"
Then it wrote a message about attempting to mount in a read-only mode which also produced the same error.
"pivotroot: pivot_root(/sysroot,/sysroot/initrd) failed:2
"umount /initrd/sys failed:2"
"umount /initrd/proc failed:2"
"initrd finished"
"freeing unused kernel memory: 220k freed"
"Kernel panic - not syncing: No init found..."

I tried the other options on the bootloader including failsafe and the only difference is that I don't receive the video error but the same kernel panic occurs during the bootup. My Windows XP partition still boots up normally.

Any help would be appreciated

[Edit: included more of the error messages]

Now you gone and dunnit.
I think this is an initrd problem, so either there is no /dev/initrd (BIG problem)
-or-
Your system is missing the init script. I'm not familiar with what Mandriva's booting process looks like, but what can you see after you choose linux from your bootloader? (BTW, what is your bootloader? GRUB or LILO?) If you can't see anything, boot from a boot disk and when you get to the boot: prompt, type and see if you have an /etc/inittab, /etc/ and /sbin/init files. If you don't, I think that's your problem.

Try the second option first, if not come back, I think I have a workaround for the first problem...

Thanks for the quick response!

First, I'm actually unsure of which boot loader Mandriva uses. I attempted to use Debian on my system before and I know that installation used GRUB. This one looks totally different so maybe it's LILO :P

My screen isn't blank when it boots. It writes quite a bit of text on the screen before encountering the error. It looks almost identical to when I booted up with Debian (however that installation had an entirely different and much more serious problem, haha.)

I used my Mandriva CD to enter the rescue console. I'm not sure of the commands to actually do anything useful with the command line but I typed in the three directories you suggested and I got the following responses:

Typed in /etc/:
"bash: /etc/: is a directory

Typed in /etc/inittab:
"bash: /etc/inittab: permission denied

Typed in /sbin/init:
"Usage: init 0123456SsQpAaBbCcUu

I suppose that implies that those directories exist at the least. I find it strange though that Mandriva won't even boot up after having just installed it. Is it possible that some of my hardware isn't supported?

It's doubtful that that is your problem. Most likely, the installer messed up or your BIOS decided to kick a process in the nuts. Nothing detrimental. BTW, you might want to check out Introduction to Command Line , it comes in handy from time to time. =) Anyway, lets see what we have here....

Well, it looks like you have an initrd problem. Sounds fun, eh? It's no big deal, but I need to know what kernel you're using. From the console, type: What do you come up with?
Also, can you post the contents of your /etc/grub.conf or your /etc/lilo.conf? or at least the lines that don't bein with '#'?

Thanks for the link, I was wondering how to actually do things with the command line However, I might still be doing something wrong since everything you asked for came up negative. I believe cat is the correct command for what I meant to do:

[root@rescue /]# uname -r
bash: uname command not found

I researched a bit and it seems that Mandriva 10.2 (the one I"m using) comes with the 2.6.8 kernel. Of course I can't be totally sure seeing as the console wouldn't tell me.

[root@rescue /]# cat /etc/grub.conf
cat: /etc/grub.conf: No such file or directory

[root@rescue /]# cat /etc/lilo.conf
cat: /etc/lilo.conf: No such file or directory

That wouldn't make sense seeing as the boot loader does work enough to allow me to at least choose what I want to boot up. I tried a few other commands to manipulate the files but everything claimed they didn't exist. I found something though and I'm not sure if it's related. I used a command to list my partitions and it stated that my Linux partitions were in the ext2 format when I'm certain that they were formatted in ext3. The errors were related to mounting ext3 partitions so it might be related? Another thing, I saw in the rescue menu that I could re-install the boot loader. Should I try that?

Definately try to reinstall the bootloader. If you don't have a lilo -OR- grub configuration file, I have a feeling that may be your problem. Truthfully, you might be best reinstalling from scratch, it appears that the installer didn't do a lot of the things it was supposed to do...

BTW, just from my experience, you're best off installing GRUB instead of LILO (when you get the option).

Alright, I'll re-install the loader and if that doesn't work I'll re-install the whole thing over. Thanks for your help, I appreciate it =)

My pleasure. We're always here to help.

Actually I managed to find my lilo.conf file. Apparently the partitions weren't mounted when I was trying to access them, or something along those lines. Anyways here's what it gave, not sure if it'll help or not.

If not I guess I'll install it again and hope it works this time, heh.

[Edit] Completely reinstalled, it's still the same. If anyone has any idea what this could be caused by I'd appreciate it.