Hi guys, need some help please. When I boot into Linux I get:

Kernel Panic: VFS: unable to mount root fs on 03:01

Here is my lilo.conf

# LILO configuration file
# generated by 'liloconfig'
#
# Start LILO global section
boot = /dev/hda
message = /boot/boot_message.txt
prompt
timeout = 50
# Override dangerous defaults that rewrite the partition table:
change-rules
reset
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x256
vga = 773
# End LILO global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/beta
root = /dev/hda1
label = Beta
read-only
image = /boot/vmlinuz.old
root = /dev/hda1
label = Slack.old
read-only



# Linux bootable partition config ends

(I took out the commented vga sections)

The path to the 'beta' kernel is correct (I can still boot into the Slack.old kernel)

This is with Kernel 2.4.20

Any help would be much appreciated,

Thanks,

And did you enable support for it in the kernel?
Did you copy /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/Beta ?

propably the file system, for instance if your partitions are in reiser format, and forgot to compile reiser support into the kernel.

another possibility is that you disabled VFS support in the kernel, though i think that error looks differently.

I got a very similar message when i used the "bare" kernel that is supplied on the CD and it wanted the kernel on a floppy ... but you look like you recompiled a new kernel. So just go in, check the options (prolly make xconfig) and
make dep clean bzImage
make modules
make modules_install
copy arch...
copy System.map
lilo (don't forget to do that, or else you get a kernel panic also)

Ok, these are the steps I took to build it:

$ make menuconfig (configured everything in there including file systems etc etc)
$ make dep
$ make clean
$ make bzImage
$ make modules
$ make modules_install

I then edited my lilo.conf file in /etc, then typed:
$ lilo
to update it

I then rebooted

There must be something very small wrong because I can use a previously compiled kernel that I made from the same source and I only changed a couple of things.

It tells me to look at the 'root =' parameter in lilo.conf, but I have and it points to the correct image.

Thanks for your help so far,

ok, but did you copy the file in arch/i386/boot/bzImage to /boot/newKernelImage
and System.map to /boot/System.mapNewKernelImage

(you need to do that before you run lilo)

And my first guess is still that you disabled LVM in "Multidevice Support (RAID and LVM) ... though just looking at the config thing it doesn't make sense anymore ... so i think i'm really wrong on that one. Check the filesystems section though.

Yeah, I did copy both of the files across the files across, and yes I think I disabled multidevice support . I'll try that when I get home and see what happens, thanks again for your help,

May be you must use mkinitrd to create a RamDisk image.
Then u must give the path of the image in /etc/lilo.conf. (an entry which looks something like 'initrd=/path/to/ramdisk' in lilo.conf - cf man lilo.conf)

Sorted it now guys thanks . I just copyed the default kernel source back into Linux-2.4.20 and I just used that with caution :P

Thanks for all your help ,