Recompiled kernel error - "Unable to mount root fs on 21:42"
 

Hey guys,

So here's what happend...

I have RedHat 7.3 installed. I need to have the option of booting to a 2.2.23 kernel, so I downloaded the source and preceeded to make/compile it. Everything went fine. After compiling I did make modules, then make modules, then make install.

From that point, the bzImage (linux-2.2.23) was copied into my /boot dir, as was an initrd-2.2.23.img file. Also, the make install utility modified grub and placed a new entry to boot to the new kernel. This entry is exactly the same as what appears for my 2.4.18-3 kernel, just points to the 2.2.23 files.

At this point i rebooted into 2.4.18-3 just to make sure everything worked still, and it did, so i was fine.

I then tried booting into the new kernel (2.2.23) and it starts to boot, then i get this error message:

"Kernel Panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 21:42"

Any ideas guys??? Your help is appreciated.




System:
Asus A7V Apollo-133 chipset
AMD Athlon 1300Mhz (Thunderbird)
Promise 100 IDE Controller
Maxtor 20gig
Fujitsu 40gig
Geforce4 4200
SB Live!

Did you compile in the right filesystem support?

Yes, ext2.
 

My install is "using" ext3, which came with the RedHat 7.3 install. The 2.2.23 kernel doesn't have ext3, however it does have ext2, and from what I've read (and people have told me), ext2 should be able to mount and work with ext3

Promise 100 IDE Controller
 

I had a thought...

I notice that the xconfig for the 2.4.18-3 kernel has the option of including support for the Promise series of IDE controller cards. The 2.2.23 kernel does not have this option.

Could I be getting this error because the custom kernel I made doesnt recognize and support my IDE controller card?

If so, is there a patch or module I could use to get around this?

again, thanks guys