This is probably an easy fix, but being a newbie I'm ready to format the drive and start all over again. The o/s is RH 7.3 Kernel 2.4.18-3 i686. RH used to boot up, but now I'm getting this error.

Kmod: failed to exe /sbin/modprobe -s -k ide -cd, errno=2
hda: driver not present
mount: error 6 mounting ext 3
pivot root: pivot_root (/sysroot, /sysroot /initrd) failed: 2
Freeing unused kernel memory: 280k freed
Kernel panic: No init found. Try to passing init= option to kernel

Obviously it's not detecting one of my hardware devices. I did change the CDROM to a DVD/CDROM. Could this be the problem? And if so how do I resolve it?

The init can't be found, I would guess, because it's on hda, and
Which means that hda can't be mounted, which means if it's your root filesystem, it can't be read, and if you can't read the root filesystem, you can't boot.

I am somewhat suspicious of the fact that you're running RH 7.3 with kernel 2.4.anything (although your info says you're running RH8, I assume that if you specifically typed, "the o/s is RH 7.3", that the OS is in fact RH 7.3). This can't be natural (meaning that I don't think that RH 7.3 came with a 2.4 series kernel), which would mean that you installed this kernel yourself.

If so, did you compile in ext3 support? Into the kernel? This error implies that ext3 support either does not exist, or is compiled as a module (which there is a very big warning about doing in the kernel help-- support for your root filesystem must be directly compiled into your kernel).

If this is the case, the kernel has to be recompiled.... do you have another bootable kernel (the previous one) available, and does it boot successfully, or can you do a rescue boot from the first install CD? If so, boot into that and recompile the new kernel with direct ext3 support. If not, pretty much your only alternatives are:

1) Boot from a LiveCD distro such as Knoppix, Mepis, MandrakeMove, SLAX, PLD, or what-have-you, mount your RH partition, chroot into the RH root and recompile the kernel that way; or

2) reinstall and start over.

Hope this helps.

P.S. If the system won't boot, there is no "easy" fix. A non-booting OS is one of the more serious problems, since you can't fix the OS without booting it, and if booting it is itself the problem... it becomes rather circular, as you can imagine.

You say that you updated your cd to a dvd rom. Could it be that the system is looking at the dvd as hda? How are the jumpers set, is the dvd rom jumpered differently? Just something simple tp look at before getting a headache!

Thank you both for your replies. This gives me some where to start. Motub, I think I'll contact my instructor who assisted in the install about some of the questions you asked. It's been over a year since I took the class so I can't remember specific details. Thank you both again.

Just in case you might want to know what the problem was I switched the second IDE cable from the CDROM drive to the hard drive and visa versa and it booted up. This solved the problem of the hard drive not booting up. I'm not sure why this created the initial problem without checking many other reasons, but that is it in a nut shell. I do have some other issues that I need help with and will post them seperately. Thanks again!