Kernel panic problem...
 

Hi.
For some reason (i really dont know why) linux tells me that "Kernel Panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:01". There are different messages actually. sometimes its that one, sometimes it says something like "unable to handle kernel null pointer dereferense". I dont recall what i can have done wrong. Any suggestions? And if i need to format the disk, how am i supposed to do that? Like, in windows u can press the f8 key when windows is starting up, and u can boot from a bootable cd, how is this done in linux?

Hey! while i was writing this, i tried rebooting the server countless times, and right now it came to the log in screen!? I have rebooted the computer at least 50 times, both yesterday and today. Why did it suddently start now? What can the problem be? Now that im in, what can i do to fix the problem? Is there some kind of application that can clean my system or something?

Thank you all for helping me out here. Im really trying my best to learn Linux :)

Its a debian distro.

Hello,
Either you have a hardware problem, your kernel is seriously broken, or not compiled for your architecture or a hardware component of your computer is not supported on linux or you have a virus (unlikely) or something else.

What is your distro?
Did you add any hardware recently?
Try using a live CD and see if you have any problem with another kernel.

Its debian. I dont think there is a hw problem, rather something i have done, because i was playing around with the root user. Messed around with the shutdown command and the init (different numbers) command. Is there a way of cleaning or repairing the kernel/os ?

No, havent added any hardware. Well, i unplugged a dvd-rom but it startet when i booted up after that. I have run debian on this server for a day, and rebooted a million times, but this happend after i had been playing around a bit..

(it works now then, but i dont want to reboot to see it fail on me again :p )

And by the way, if i do need to format and start over again, how do i do that? How do i boot of the debian cd? (like you do by pressing the f8 key when windows starts up..)

I think probably you changed the partition table. If you have change it, please use recover disk to change the /etc/fstab file.