Hello?

I have a system that has WinXP, FC3, and SuSE 8.2 Pro
on three different hard drives. Currently, SuSE's GRUB
is residing at MBR and controls each OS booting.

I've been using FC3 just fine, but I'm getting the following
kernel panic error, and cannot boot to FC3 anymore:

Uncompressing Linux ... OK, booting the kernel.
audit: initialized.

Red Hat nash version 4.1.18 starting
Found volume Group "VolGroup00" using metadata type lvm1
0 logical volume(s) in volume group "VolGroup00" active now.
mount: error 6 mounting ext3
mount: error 2 mounting none
switchroot: mount failed: 22
umount /initrd/dev failed: 2

Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

Now, all this appears to suggest me that the drive, where FC3
resides, is no longer accessible, but I have FC3's memtest running
just great that also happens to exist in the same drive.

I guess I could reload FC3's GRUB in the MBR and see if I could
run FC3 that way. But, whether the GRUB is SuSE's or FC3's, this
shouldn't make any difference, or does it?

I believe FC3's GRUB is more current than SuSE's and currently,
SuSE's GRUB is in the MBR in control of booting all the existing
OSs. Also, FC3' kernel is newer than SuSE's obviously.

Anyway, I would appreciate if someone has any idea why this
has occurred, and suggests me some solutions without replacing
the current GRUB in the MBR.

Thanks.

BTW
I had FC3's GRUB in the MBR first, but then I replaced it with SuSE's
and I have made all the OS boot entries in SuSE. Now, if I have to
play with FC3's GRUB in the MBR, I'm afraid that I might not be able to
access SuSE since I do not have SuSE's boot entry in FC3's GRUB menu
listing unless, of course, I replace SuSE's GRUB back again in the MBR.

But then, I might end up where I started with the same issue later on,
if in fact, this issue, indeed, occurs again.

EDIT/Additional Information
Well, I was trying to restore FC3's GRUB in the MBR, but
nothing changed; that is SuSE's GRUB appeared instead of FC3's.

Furthermore, when I booted using FC3's rescue CD to
see if FC3 is available or not, the mounted contents were
those from SuSE's not FC3's. And again, when I tried with
FC3's install CD1 to see if this would detect the existing FC3,
it prompted me, rather, where I would want to install FC3 as
if I were performing a new install.

Apparently, to either the FC3's rescue or the install CD,
the installed FC3 doesn't exist now.

On the other hand, when I proceeded further in the install to
the custom partition, the old/existing FC3's root and swap
partitions appeared to be intact.

So, what has happened to my system? Anyone?

Is there any hope in recovering the existing FC3 at this point?

Thanks.

Wow, this is like reading a diary!

Let's start by eliminating what it isn't: Grub.

You are getting to the /boot part and trying to start FC. It is when you try to load volumes (/) that it fails.

This is FC not finding its volume; it appears to find /boot, but nothing else seems to be there. If your problem started when you loaded the second Linux program, I would suspect it obliterated FC3. If that happened, the short (but unwanted) answer is no, you cannot recover what was there.

Your other Linux is working--see if you can use it to explore the FC3 drive and determine what is there.

Hi deadbug,

After posting my question, I felt it was perhaps too long.
But, I had to say what was on my mind regarding the issue.

Yes, I still have access to the other distro, and when I tried
to look at FC3' contents from this "other" distro, the listing
showed nothing but the blank. I think FC3's gone now.

However, should't there be some kind of informative error
messages by this other distro when trying to access the FC3's
folder listings which might've been gone/damaged as in this case?

Also, when I've tried to look at the hard drive where FC3 should
reside via DRUID tool, I still see the FC3's partitions intact.

So, I'm a bit puzzled even though I've reluctantly decided to
reinstall FC3.

As far as how this happened in the first place, other than my
fiddling with the "LVM" GUI utility from the other distro on FC3,
I can't think of anything else.

Who knows? Perhaps, my system was hacked stealthily

Thanks.

I'm just guessing, but I doubt you were hacked. I would start looking at the SuSe installation process and what might have been confusing about where the program could install. It might have interpretted your FC3 drive as fair territory for something it wanted.

Druid says it is an ext3 partition. You should be able to mount it get a better look at it, but your comments lead me to think you have already done that and found nothing.

When you reinstall FC3, do it manually and target it only where you want it--wouldn't want it repeating the process in reverse!

Good luck

Hi deadbug,

Thanks for your comments.

Having tried all I could, I just couldn't recover the FC3.
All I found was that SuSE, somehow, entirely replaced
FC3's partition. However, viewing FC3 partitions through
DRUID tool revealed them to be intact, at least, partition
type wise.

What's still puzzling me is how this has happened.

As stated in my previous posts, I'd been using XP, FC3,
and SuSE just fine without any problems, and all of a sudden,
this happened seemingly out of nowhere.

Well, I've just reinstalled FC3 and all the three OSs are
working just as nice as before.

Anyway, I appreciate your look out on this issue.

Regards,

BTW
"Being hacked" was just my fictitious assumption

OK. I have had this same error message. Here are some basic stats to start off(in case it helps):

p4 3.2 GHz
1024Mb ddr2 4200
pcix geforce6600
160gb samsung HD
MSI 915p combo fr mobo.

OK. on my computer, i have been installing diferent flavors on my 3rd partition of my drive. when i get the kernel panic message i also get a bunch of hex right before it. i have had it on clean installs of FC3, FC2, Slackware 10.0, Slackware 10.1 and now gentoo. If i boot with a gentoo live cd and load the kernel in boot parameters it boots ok. but still the live cd is in memory and runs very slow. I figured that something in my core hardware is incompatible. Something that is further troubling is the only *nix install that works on this hardware combination, is FreeBSD. It runs like a charm. too bad i dont like it. any help would be great thanks.