Hi,

I have been trying to install many differents distros (and verisions), but I am just getting the following error when trying to install RED Hat on my system:

RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0
crc error: VFS: Cannot open root device 08:34
Kernal Panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 08:34

Now I have tried to install any OS on this machine, but to no avail. I am getting this error trying to install RedHat 6.2 on this older system.

I am pretty sure it is not the CD-ROM or the HDD. It could be the RAM?? I just wanted to see if anyone else has seen this error.

Thanks!

Well, what is the system you're trying to install RH onto?

I am having much the same problem installing Mandrake 8.2 on my system. Particularly, it dies while booting the install kernel from either diskette or cd with the error message "Kernal Panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 01:30"...

I am unsure of what to do. I've installed earlier versions of both Mandrake and RedHat on other systems I've owned and had very little trouble with the installation and configuration. This time, I've tried to boot Mandrake from both the CD and a boot floppy. For comparison, I tried to load the network install boot floppy for RedHat 7.2 (my university has an ftp mirror for several linux distros on its LAN), only to have init die right out of the gate. I wonder if it may be my system itself. I lost my computer to a surge last summer and rebuilt from a cheaper barebones this past fall. Perhaps the kernel doesn't like my über-integrated (but cost-effective--hey, I'm not rich) SiS chips. Here's a brief rundown of the system.

SiS 630/730 chipset w/ integrated video (ugh)
Integrated SiS 900 Fast Ethernet adp
Integrated SiS 7018 sound
320 Mb PC100 generic memory (16 Mb shared with video)
AMD Athlon at 900 mghz
SiS PCI IDE controller
2 HDD on IDE0:
8.0 Gb WD Caviar as master
3.4 Gb Seagate as slave
44x CDROM on IDE1

That's basically it. I've been running Windoze 2000 Server since October and just recently moved to XP Professional. Never had any problems there (surprisingly)...in fact, W2k didn't crash once in 6 mos. The WD drive has XP on a single NTFS partition and the Seagate is completely clean and unpartitioned (inanticipation of linux). Don't know...if anyone know what to do (other than buying another computer), I would really appreciate the input.

Could you post the specific hardware/system specs for your box, including hard drive configuration?

well, seems a lot of people are having the same problem...after reading through
several other threads based around the same problem I put together what I learned
and managed to solve my problem...in fact, I'm sending this message from
within Konqueror on my now-working Mandrake 8.2 install...

i passed the following args along to linux at bootup:

"mem=304m root=/dev/hdb1 noathlon"

seems to have worked for me, perhaps it may work for others with proper modifications...
this was effective both with a cd boot and a network install boot floppy...

Hey,

I have a:

DFI P5BV3+/e rev. B Mainboard
AMD-K6 300 Processor (100 MHz x 3.0)
2x 128mb PC100 Generic DIMMS
Fujitsu MPE3136AH (13.7 Gb) set as Master w/Slave
Generic 56x CD-ROM as slave

This board is AT, I don't know much else about it. I am just looking to get into Linux. I assembled this from just stuff I had lying around.

I downloaded distro like Mndrake 8.2 and RH 7.2, but I am still getting those errors.

I don't know how to get to the UNIX prompt to type in the commands that were mentioned, or how to edit any of the source on the CD (I am the ultimate newbie!).

So any (and all!) help would be great.

Thanks!

sorry, though I still consider myself a "newbie", I have been using various distros of Linux for the past five or six years, so I guess I have picked up a little bit I'll try not to be so presumptive next time...

The arguments I gave above are not typed at a unix shell prompt (obviously you would be running Linux and not be having the aforementioned bootup problems), rather they are passed directly to the kernel at bootup. To do this, you simply type "linux" followed by the args when the "boot:" prompt comes up...thus, when I did it, what I typed looked like this:

boot: linux mem=304m root=/dev/hdb1 noathlon

Hope that clears it up for you...and I hope it works...I don't know if any one arg by itself solve my problem or if all of them were necessary. If you are installing to the slave drive, then the "root=/dev/hdb1" is definately needed. I used the "mem" line b/c I have a weird memory config (320 Mb total with 16 Mb shared with integrated video chip...thus the odd amount of memory). As for the "noathlon" part, I read in a few threads here that some Athlons with certain chipsets actually have problems with the Athlon-specific code in the kernel. I'm a little dubious about that, but in my case it obviously didn't hurt. My system's booting fine now--I even have it dual booting WinXP and Mandrake using the Windows NT loader (I'm surprised).

Good luck!

hey again,

i have tried the lines:

linux mem=256M root=/dev/hdb1 noathlon
and
linux mem=exactmap mem=640k@0 mem=255M@1

and what I am getting now is

Uncompressing Linux......
crc error
-- System Halted

This is a new install of Linux (I have been using RH 62 and RH72 to test this on) and just seem to be getting the above mentioned error.

Any Help?

Thanks!

Hmm...sounds to me like you installation medium is corrupted...is it a bootdisk that you made or did you burn an install CD from a d/l'ed image...I made a Mandrake 8.2 CD from an image a few days ago and it was corrupted...i've had that happen several times in the past, too...

Will Try Thanks!

Thanks for all your help everyone!

I changed the CPU on the MoBo and now it works just fine. I guess that there was somesort of problem with the AMD running at 100MHz and the rest of the system running at 66MHz.

Thanks again,
Matt

, and proud of it!