kennel should be kernel. Also you have both hda=ide-scsi and hdb=ide-scsi, how many hard drives is on this computer? maybe root=/dev/hdb5

I just mistyped kernel. That is ok.
I have one harddrive. I tried removing both hda=ide-scsi and hdb=ide-scsi. But the error got worse. Should I just try to remove one?

To see how much space a directory occupies, use. See also for more du options.

The problem of your original system looks for me like: your kernel thinks that to use your disk (or the partition /dev/sda5), it needs a particular module called block-major-8 , but it cannot find this module. (Another interpretation would be that /sbin/modprobe is missing, but this looks less probable.) Causes I can think of are (note that things can be more complicated because of the old kernel, which I don't know how it works) :
1. This type of disk really needs this module, previously it was built into the kernel, and now it is missing or is build as a separate module, which is located in a place where the kernel cannot find it. (You have a new kernel?)
2. This type of disk really needs this module, previously the module was present in the appropriate directory, and now it is lost.
3. The disk is now physically or logically damaged, and the kernel thinks about a wrong module, which is not there.

Do you remember what you were doing before the error appeared? Did you upgrade or rebuild the kernel? Did you upgrade initramfs and do you have a copy of the old one? Did you do any other upgrades?

It's easier to see what your are doing with a graphical program. The GNOME Disk Utility in Ubuntu 14 and Fedora 19 on up has the capability to clone drives. It's a very deliberate thing and it's a lot harder to mess up than using dd.

If it were on my box (and I've been in this sort of position before, its no fun) I would to boot your system up from a live medium. I assume that since you are a professor that you have access to a computer lab at your university. If you don't have another computer to work with, try using a PC in the lab to burn an image of a newer distro like Fedora or Ubuntu. At least from there you can access the files in your home folder and use your system from the live disk until you have a functional system. You can also determine if your harddrive was jostled while moving it, hopefully that is not the case.

Next, I would find a good deal on a brand new harddrive. The Western Digital Scorpio Blacks are good and fast, but if you don't feel like spending that much, there are all sorts of other options out there.

From there you can copy your data to the new harddrive, reinstall RHEL if you like (preferably a newer version than what you have considering the shellshock bug) and install that. Assuming you were using GNOME on RHEL 3, then KDE 4 or 5 should be pretty familiar to you. The new GNOME is nothing like what it used to be, but give it a try if you like. It's kind of an acquired taste.

Just my 2 cents on the issue, hope it helped.

Thanks, both of you: Well, two things happened. My university constantly shuts our power off while my linux box is running, maybe too many times of improper shut downs. Last, I shut down the machine properly and moved it to my home. I was very careful not to drop it. But at home that's when my problems started.

Yes, I think that there is a module missing or some other file got corrupted on shut down more than I think of a physical problem.

I have a brand new harddrive of the same type and another 32-bit Dell with a graphics card containing the 3-pin output for graphics. So, yes, I plan on installing RELH 6.6 on that i386, especially now I have all of them from the old machine. But it will be a pain, and I have to find my notes on changing some setting in some video driver(?) from 0 to 1 to get the 3D goggles to work--can't remember exactly. The rest will just take time.

Every 5 years or so, I have to start all over again with my linux machines, because there isn't a SuperDuper equilavent to Mac. I need a solution to make an image of my drive after I reinstall everything. Perhaps I will try using Ubuntu 14 on cloning RELH6...if that will work...? In either case, when I get to that point, I will ask for help.

I'm still open to any suggestions. Forgive me for crying. I made a living off that one machine for 10 years.

3D goggles? You mean VR? Have no experience with that, maybe you could contact the manufacturer on that one.

Ubuntu should work just fine for cloning RHEL 6 to your new harddrive, however, you could download CentOS (RHEL without RedHat branding) and perform a clean install. That would be best. Or, it seems you are familiar with Mac OS X, Ubuntu 14 would probably seem pretty comfortable to you. You'll have to try it to find out for sure.

Here is a guide on cloning drives with Disks, which is included with Fedora, RHEL/CentOS 7, and Ubuntu. In this example, it uses an image of Fedora to a USB drive, but the concept is the same. You may need to resize your partitions afterwards.
http://fedoramagazine.org/how-to-mak...g-gnome-disks/

Either way you will need to copy your home folder to your new install. Your files should be under /home/yourusername. Just copy everything (including folders that include a . in front of the name to your new home folder, those are application settings) and you should have all your files and your application settings.

I'm afraid I will give up soon, because maybe the error is somehow related with the old kernel rules. For now, please give the following information:
1. Boot from CD
2. For each initrd file you have (let's say, its name is /mnt/sysimage/boot/initrd) :
3. Create a temporary directory 4. Mount the initrd file to that directory 5. List all files in that initrd ant post the output here.

I've installed RHEL 5.11 on a 2004 DELL with a 3D-graphics card. I wasn't able to install RHEL 6.6. It kept saying CD Drive Not Found. I believe RHEL 6.6 doesn't support older machines. Please let me know if there is a work around.

In any case, I am reinstalling all my old programs. However, I am trying to get the machine to recognize my old internal drive as a second disk. Right now, I don't find it. I tried:
RHEL 5.11 doesn't recognize fdisk -l either.

I took out the tab in back of the harddrive too. The one for Master or Slave. I can't remember if that is important.

I would copy all the contents of my old harddrive onto a portable. But RHEL only recognizes vfat formatted drives. I don't know if I have one large enough.

Sorry, but in this situation (the disk not present in RHEL 5.1) I don't have any idea about what can help. And since your situation is now completely different from what you started with, I would recommend to create a new topic with a description of the present situation now.

Yup. But I just figured out that one of the field's crystallographic programs (XPLOR) only works on the Linux-2.4 kernels in RHEL 3, not this Linux-2.6 in RHEL 5 that I installed. So, on my old machine, I will likely reinstall RHEL 3 unless I can contact the new care takers of the program to recompile another binary for yet another platform.

That is why upgrading OSs isn't always the best idea. I appreciate the concern about updates for security, but personally I do not see the reward benefit to get the latest version of any OS, including linux. It's a waste of time. And, I find it disenchanting of RHEL not to support older chips. One of the great things about linux is that they run nicely on old machines, especially as servers for websites. But apparently not anymore! On top of that, even though I paid $50 for RHEL subscription, they tell me that only allows me support for yum questions M-F, not on the weekend. And they don't support their earlier products, reminiscent of dreaded Microsoft policies. I thought the world of linux was different.

With that said, all my field's crystallographic program work on Macs. I don't feel comfortable installing an NVIDIA FX -gl card for the 3D graphics on a Mac, and those new cards have sky rocketed in price. So, I will likely keep these two linux boxes for that one program for another 10 years, but migrate to Mac for the rest.

Odin_ago and everyone: I really appreciate your efforts. It did help me. We managed to access my old data and programs. And, I am on my way to get a hard drive duplicator so I have a way to clone drives. My latest article about rescuing a devastating genetic mutation, where I used all these crystallographic programs in my analyses, will come online shortly. Once it does, I will provide a link if you are interested. Thank You

tearsforhari,

Yes please.

What model is the Dell? I have an 04 laptop and the CD drive is recognized just fine with all the distros I've tried on it. Chipset on something that old should be picked up right away. Have you tried CentOS 7? I think that would simplify your life dramatically, considering what we see here.

What is the output of fdisk -l? It could be as simple as downloading the RPM package, assuming you can find one that works with RHEL 5.

I was trying to install RHEL 6.6 on a Dell Precision 670 (2004 I think). During installation, after the initial boot off the CD, it said CD drive not found, and I could never get beyond that to a prompt.

I just finished installing RHEL 3 again that works for all my field-specific programs, which were compiled with kernel-2.4.
These programs won't all work on RHEL 4, 5, or 6. Nevertheless, I wish I knew if RHEL 6 would work on old Dells. I have a couple of more of them that I was going to try, a Dell Precision 380 that is maybe 2010.

How similar is Centos? I was reading that there is an extra step needed for Centos when installing the video driver. So, it's not exactly the same as RHEL.

RHEL 5 didn't recognize fdisk -l. But I was ultimately able to mount my old disks in both RHEL 5 and 3. I bought a USB to sata adaptor and am using my internal hard drives as portable externals. Life is good now, although I never did figure out why RHEL 3 kept giving me that message:

VFS: Cannot open root device "LABEL=/" or 00:00
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernal panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 00:00

I tried /dev/sba3 and /dev/sba5. There is something else wrong. But now I am at a point where I am going to do a fresh install of RHEL 3 on that Dell Precision 340 (2004).

Seriously. If you are dealing with that kind of data, MAKE REGULAR BACKUPS. I can't stress this enough.
Preferably off site backups but backing up the important stuff to a USB hard drive would be better than nothing.