error:"kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs":-(
 

Hi, I installed Mandrake linux version 8.0 about a month ago. It is on a dual boot system (Linux and Win98) of one 30GB hard disk. Last night I defragmented my hard disk in Windows 98 using Norton Speed Disk. After it was done, I tried to reboot into Linux, but I got the following error:

kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:05

Are you not supposed to defragment your hard disk if you have two OS's on one hard disk? Is the problem directly related to me defragmenting my hard disk?

And is there anything I can do to fix Linux? Would re-installing Linux on that partition solve the problem? Would I potentially mess up Windows 98?

I thought that running a defragmenter under Windows 98/NT would only mess with the FAT32 or NTFS partition, not the linux partition...

Thanks a _lot_ in advance!!!

Basically, if you get a kernel error then Linux will not boot - at all. You will need to re-install if you can.

You may have not messed up the partition itself, but instead the partition table, which records where everything is laid out.