Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown block(0,0)
 

Hi all,

I just inherited a CentOS server running 6.2. As far as I can tell the system has never been updated, so I ran a yum update.

Now the system will not boot, it is giving this error:

Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown block(0,0)

After a few googles I see one solution is to boot from and older kernel and then do a:

yum reinstall kernel

The question I have is can I actually upgrade from kernel:

2.6.32-220.el6.x86_64

to:

2.6.32-573.3.1.el6.x86_64

Without any problems?

I really don't want to re-install and go through all the reconfiguration and installation of all of the applications.

Why are you using such a old release?
Actual is Centos 6.7 or 7.1.

I just got this machine, that is why I did a yum update, as it will update to 6.7

I don't want to go to 7 just yet, waiting until I get more comfortable with systemd.

You should reinstall Centos 6.7.

Found the problem. For some reason when updating the kernel it did not install:

initrd-2.6.32-573.3.1.el6.x86_64kdump.img

Even after doing a: yum reinstall kernel

it did not work, so I kind of cheated I copied the file from another server and everything works now.