This is my first time trying to install Gentoo. I made it through all the steps following the stage 2 installation but when I rebooted I received the following error:




Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on uknown-block(3,3)




I compiled my own 2.6.10 kernel using "emerge gentoo-dev-sources"

I installed the LILO boot loader because I was having problems emerging grub.

Here is my lilo.conf

boot=/dev/hda
prompt
timeout=50
default=gentoo

image=/boot/kernel-2.6.10-gentoo-r6
label=gentoo
read-only
root=/dev/hda3

my partitions are pretty straight forward:

/dev/hda2 /boot ext2 noauto,noatime 1 1
/dev/hda3 / reiserfs noatime 0 0
/dev/hda2 /swap swap sp 0 0

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hey patrickclay,

If I were you I would do some searching around at the Gentoo Forums. They are pretty good at working through things over there. As for your problem, I won't be much help. I few months back I was looking for information on my own kernel panic and ran across a few relating to not mounting root. Most of them recommended verifying that the file systems were compiled into the kernel and not as modules.

That would be the first thing to look at. I also saw a lot of "compiled a new kernel and it worked" which doesn't help much. That is about all I know. Hope you find an answer! Gentoo Rocks!

PhilD

I did a plethora of new things and together they all seemed to work.

First, I recompiled a new kernel - this time time with reiserfs support!! Go figure, who would have ever though. (DERRR) That didn't cut it though.

I added map=System.map to my lilo.conf (unsure if that was necessary)

I totally forgot to mount the /proc filesystem. (another DERRRRRR)


I feel really dumb for these stupid mistakes but I can get over them quickly because now I have my Gentoo system up!!! Woo woo!!!

Thanks for the help PhilD