I'd like to renew this thread to say I'm having the exact same problem (thank God for google). The kernel panic comes after text-GUI notification that the system "Could not mount compressed loopback

." I believe this stems from an error involving sysroot.
In the log screen (alt+F3):
Code:
mounting /dev/loop0 on /sysroot/image_boot as type iso9660
mount failed: Invalid argument
unsetting automatic
In my interactive shell (alt+F2), a quick cd into /sysroot shows that no directory named image_boot exists. When I try to create one there and "mount -t iso9660 /dev/loop0 /sysroot/image_boot" manually, it says "Mount: : Permission denied".
This happens as well with the Mandrake 10.1 Community installation cdrom, which is really upsetting, considering that I used that CD to install linux before I upgraded my hardware.
Current hardware:
Motherboard: MSI KT4A-V
Processor: Amd Athlon XP (Not a Barton)
Graphics Card: Nvidia Geforce 2 MX