The problem occurred when I upgraded my robot (PCM-5535 PC-104 industrial mainboard, Cyrix Geode 300 processor, Cyrix 5530 chipset) from Mandrake 9.0 to 10.1 -- and currently, I cannot figure out a solution.

Install went fine. Unlike Mandrake 10, the current version correctly detected my card. Likewise created an ext3 filesystem, and copied files. Final adjustments went fine, and it rebooted... into a kernel panic.

The panic occurs when it tries mounting the root filesystem (residing on /dev/hdc1, default location for IDE CF on this mainboard, nothing on other IDE buses). Just before it should write "Init 2.85 booting". Instead it writes "error 6 mounting ext3", "no init found" and various other unfortunate things.

When I employ a boot floppy... it correctly boots into the rescue console... mounts the hard disk, and everything seems fine. I have tried reinstalling the bootloader from the rescue console. Tried installing both with GRUB and LILO. Tried passing "ide=nodma" among boot options (since it helped me with 9.0).

But currently, nothing helps.
Can anyone recommend... how to diagnose what exactly is wrong?

Could it possibly be... that the installation program loads the Kahlua IDE driver... but the kernel proper fails, or entirely lacks it? Can anyone recommend how to ascertain that? Is it feasible to try recompiling a kernel from a rescue console?

Or alternatively... which other diagnostic methods might yield useful information?

Already tried:
-- I tried installing a different BIOS version.
-- I tried with ReiserFS instead of EXT3 (still cannot mount).
-- Also tried playing with BIOS DMA and PIO settings.
-- Tried disabling the primary IDE controller (card is on secondary).

Scheduled for try;
-- Try with a real hard drive on /dev/hda.

Aside from driver malfunction or lack of drivers... what could theoretically cause failiure to mount / when booting from a hard drive... yet ability to mount it when booting from a rescue floppy?

Should I try really old-fashioned things like a DOS partition and LoadLin.exe?

Might it be relevant that I have no swap partition? When reinstalling and creating one... should I preferably position it before or after the root partition?

Getting *even* more interesting.

It also fails with a true, real, spinning 2.5" hard drive... attached via cable as "/dev/hda".

Would this permit to conclude anything?

Further info:

It also fails when I *do* create a swap partition.
But the cause... is still mystery for me.