Ok, I don't know what else to do...
I moved to Red Hat couple of weeks ago here at my work (sick and tired of Windows and blue screens). Red Hat is working smoothly and I thought, let's give it a try....
This is the thing, this is my first time trying to complile the kernel (let's make clear I'm a simple red hat user trying to do some new things) and now I understand why is so hard... Very frustrating experience so far...

I did all I was supposed to do (or I thought I did) and know when trying to run my machine I'm getting this error:

VFS: cannot open root device "LABEL=/" on unknow-block (0,0)

Please append a correct "root" boot option

Kernel panic: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknow-block (0,0)

Now, I'm using grub. here is a copy of my grub.conf


default=3
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,1)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.6.8)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.8 ro root=LABEL=/
initrd /initrd-2.6.8.img
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.22)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.22 ro root=/dev/hda5
initrd /initrd-2.4.22.img
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1


Any Idea???

ok, seems like I fixed the biggest problem I had. My Grub is loading now and I'm able to login and everything.

Seems like the problem I had was on the grub.conf. This is the line I chenged...

kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.8 ro root=LABEL=/

and the new one is this one:

kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.8 ro root=/dev/hda5

With this changed my new kernel finally worked...

This is my new problem, when the Linux is loading there are several error (FAILED) messages and I still have a lot of problems when trying to use the new kernel, for instance I can't go online, seems like my Ethernet card is not properly configure...
So here are my new 2 questions....

How can I find all the error that I received when the linux is loading? Is there any log file I can check to see those error messages?

How can I try to configure my ethernet card (or anything I need to reconfigure)? What are the steps to follow? do I need to recomplile the kernel again for the changes to take effect????

<strike>Did you install the drivers for your hard drive? The first time I recompiled I forgot them in IDE device drivers. If you can't login now use the installation cd as rescue cd.</strike>

Did you need specific drivers for your ethernet? You might need to recompile those as well. Is your card still recognized try with ifconfig I think that shows a MAC address if your PC can see it

thanks for the quick answer.

I already solved my initial problem, now my kernel seems to be working (partially at least...)

This is my new problem:

when the Linux is loading there are several error (FAILED) messages and I still have a lot of problems when trying to use the new kernel, for instance I can't go online, seems like my Ethernet card is not properly configure...
So here are my new 2 questions....

How can I find all the error that I received when the linux is loading? Is there any log file I can check to see those error messages?

How can I try to configure my ethernet card (or anything I need to reconfigure)? What are the steps to follow? do I need to recomplile the kernel again for the changes to take effect????

/var/log/dmesg has boot info.

Could you try
If eth0 isn't your interface for internet use yours instead. If a MAC addrress is given the PC at least rcognizes your card. Also
might give some insight in what's happening.

ok, here is the result of the "ifconfig eth0":

eth0: error fetching interface information: Device not found

and this is the copy of my dmesg (I don't know if this is going to be too long, but I don't understand a word on the log, so I''m sorry if it's too long):

Linux version 2.6.8 (root@localhost.localdomain) (gcc version 3.2.2 20030222 (Red Hat Linux 3.2.2-5)) #1 Thu Oct 14 12:31:24 CST 2004
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009fc00 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000000009fc00 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000000e0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000001ff40000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000001ff40000 - 000000001ff50000 (ACPI data)
BIOS-e820: 000000001ff50000 - 0000000020000000 (ACPI NVS)
511MB LOWMEM available.
On node 0 totalpages: 130880
DMA zone: 4096 pages, LIFO batch:1
Normal zone: 126784 pages, LIFO batch:16
HighMem zone: 0 pages, LIFO batch:1
DMI 2.3 present.
ACPI: RSDP (v000 ACPIAM ) @ 0x000f76d0
ACPI: RSDT (v001 INTEL D845PESV 0x20020822 MSFT 0x00000097) @ 0x1ff40000
ACPI: FADT (v002 INTEL D845PESV 0x20020822 MSFT 0x00000097) @ 0x1ff40200
ACPI: MADT (v001 INTEL D845PESV 0x20020822 MSFT 0x00000097) @ 0x1ff40300
ACPI: ASF! (v016 AMIASF I845GASF 0x00000001 MSFT 0x0100000d) @ 0x1ff44330
ACPI: DSDT (v001 INTEL D845PESV 0x0000010a MSFT 0x0100000d) @ 0x00000000
Built 1 zonelists
Kernel command line: ro root=/dev/hda5
Initializing CPU#0
PID hash table entries: 2048 (order 11: 16384 bytes)
Detected 2401.117 MHz processor.
Using tsc for high-res timesource
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
Dentry cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Memory: 514388k/523520k available (1961k kernel code, 8364k reserved, 704k data, 348k init, 0k highmem)
Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode... Ok.
Calibrating delay loop... 4734.97 BogoMIPS
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
CPU: After generic identify, caps: 3febfbff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: After vendor identify, caps: 3febfbff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: Trace cache: 12K uops, L1 D cache: 8K
CPU: L2 cache: 512K
CPU: After all inits, caps: 3febfbff 00000000 00000000 00000080
Intel machine check architecture supported.
Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0.
CPU0: Intel P4/Xeon Extended MCE MSRs (12) available
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz stepping 04
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
NET: Registered protocol family 16
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xf0031, last bus=2
PCI: Using configuration type 1
Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay
PnPBIOS: Scanning system for PnP BIOS support...
PnPBIOS: Found PnP BIOS installation structure at 0xc00f4820
PnPBIOS: PnP BIOS version 1.0, entry 0xf0000:0x4e5a, dseg 0xf0000
pnp: 00:0b: ioport range 0x4d0-0x4d1 has been reserved
pnp: 00:0b: ioport range 0xcf8-0xcff could not be reserved
PnPBIOS: 16 nodes reported by PnP BIOS; 16 recorded by driver
usbcore: registered new driver usbfs
usbcore: registered new driver hub
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
PCI: Ignoring BAR0-3 of IDE controller 0000:00:1f.1
PCI: Transparent bridge - 0000:00:1e.0
PCI: Using IRQ router PIIX/ICH [8086/24c0] at 0000:00:1f.0
PCI: IRQ 0 for device 0000:00:1f.1 doesn't match PIRQ mask - try pci=usepirqmask
PCI: Found IRQ 9 for device 0000:00:1f.1
PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 0000:00:1d.2
PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 0000:02:02.0
Machine check exception polling timer started.
IA-32 Microcode Update Driver: v1.14 <tigran@veritas.com>
audit: initializing netlink socket (disabled)
audit(1097834764.486:0): initialized
Installing knfsd (copyright (C) 1996 okir@monad.swb.de).
isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
Linux agpgart interface v0.100 (c) Dave Jones
agpgart: Detected an Intel 845G Chipset.
agpgart: Maximum main memory to use for agp memory: 439M
agpgart: AGP aperture is 64M @ 0xf8000000
Using anticipatory io scheduler
floppy0: no floppy controllers found
loop: loaded (max 8 devices)
nbd: registered device at major 43
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
ICH4: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:1f.1
PCI: Enabling device 0000:00:1f.1 (0005 -> 0007)
PCI: Found IRQ 9 for device 0000:00:1f.1
PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 0000:00:1d.2
PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 0000:02:02.0
ICH4: chipset revision 2
ICH4: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xffa0-0xffa7, BIOS settings: hdaMA, hdbio
hda: ST380023A, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
hda: max request size: 128KiB
hda: 156301488 sectors (80026 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=65535/16/63, UDMA(100)
hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4 < hda5 >
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
serio: i8042 AUX port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12
input: ImPS/2 Generic Wheel Mouse on isa0060/serio1
serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1
input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard on isa0060/serio0
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP: routing cache hash table of 4096 buckets, 32Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 32768 bind 65536)
ip_conntrack version 2.1 (4090 buckets, 32720 max) - 296 bytes per conntrack
ip_tables: (C) 2000-2002 Netfilter core team
ipt_recent v0.3.1: Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net>. http://snowman.net/projects/ipt_recent/
arp_tables: (C) 2002 David S. Miller
NET: Registered protocol family 1
NET: Registered protocol family 17
NET: Registered protocol family 4
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 348k freed
EXT3 FS on hda5, internal journal
Adding 1020116k swap on /dev/hda3. Priority:-1 extents:1
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS on hda2, internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.


once again, sorry for the long of this thread, but I don't know what to do. I'm stuck here....

I don't know for your card. It looks like you don't have the drivers installed to me, did you perhaps need to install those before?

Also I think you've missed some things in your kernel. An example is that you don't have any floppy controllers. Did you enable your ethernet card in the kernel as well, IIRC there's a whole list of them to choose from.

Look at your kernel config,I have an intel onboard card;

# Ethernet (10 or 100Mbit)
#
CONFIG_NET_ETHERNET=y
CONFIG_MII=y
# CONFIG_HAPPYMEAL is not set
# CONFIG_SUNGEM is not set
# CONFIG_NET_VENDOR_3COM is not set
# CONFIG_LANCE is not set
# CONFIG_NET_VENDOR_SMC is not set
# CONFIG_NET_VENDOR_RACAL is not set

#
# Tulip family network device support
#
# CONFIG_NET_TULIP is not set
# CONFIG_AT1700 is not set
# CONFIG_DEPCA is not set
# CONFIG_HP100 is not set
# CONFIG_NET_ISA is not set
CONFIG_NET_PCI=y
# CONFIG_PCNET32 is not set
# CONFIG_AMD8111_ETH is not set
# CONFIG_ADAPTEC_STARFIRE is not set
# CONFIG_AC3200 is not set
# CONFIG_APRICOT is not set
# CONFIG_B44 is not set
# CONFIG_FORCEDETH is not set
# CONFIG_CS89x0 is not set
# CONFIG_DGRS is not set
# CONFIG_EEPRO100 is not set
CONFIG_E100=m
# CONFIG_E100_NAPI is not set
# CONFIG_FEALNX is not set
# CONFIG_NATSEMI is not set
# CONFIG_NE2K_PCI is not set
# CONFIG_8139CP is not set
CONFIG_8139TOO=y
CONFIG_8139TOO_PIO=y
# CONFIG_8139TOO_TUNE_TWISTER is not set
# CONFIG_8139TOO_8129 is not set
# CONFIG_8139_OLD_RX_RESET is not set
# CONFIG_SIS900 is not set
# CONFIG_EPIC100 is not set
# CONFIG_SUNDANCE is not set
# CONFIG_TLAN is not set
# CONFIG_VIA_RHINE is not set
# CONFIG_VIA_VELOCITY is not set
# CONFIG_NET_POCKET is not set

#

ok, I'm finally using my new kernel to go online.
Seems like some of the options I left them in module but the kernel (probably not the kernel but me) is not installing those modules, so I reinstall the module again and I changed the option to yes instead of module....
Apparently that worked, now, I'm still having some other problems, seems like my sound card is having problems now...

I forgot, you couldn't see anything for the floppy, because I don't have a floppy....

For the sound from root try alsaconf if not found you will need alsa installed.

The strange thing about this is that with my old kernel, I use to have the alsaconf and now I don't have it...

Did you enable support for it in the kernel check .config.

Weare getting somewhere here....

I really have problems with my sound card. When I go to the kernel folder (/usr/src/linux-2.6.8) I do see the "driver" for the card (Sorry for the Windows lingo, I don't know who to call it).

This is the result when I run the "lspci" command:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 82845G/GL [Brookdale-G] Chipset Host Bridge (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82845G/GL [Brookdale-G] Chipset AGP Bridge (rev
02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB USB (Hub #1) (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB USB (Hub #2) (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB USB (Hub #3) (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB USB EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801BA/CA/DB PCI Bridge (rev 82)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82801DB ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801DB ICH4 IDE (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corp. 82801DB SMBus (rev 02)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB AC'97 Audio (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV5M64 [RIVA TNT2 Model 64/Model 64 Pro] (rev 15)
02:02.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905C-TX/TX-M [Tornado] (rev 78)

as you can see my sound card is:

Intel Corp. 82801DB AC'97 Audio (rev 02)

and there is a folder for that card under /usr/src/linux-2.6.8/sound/pci/AC97

the problem here is that when I run the comand:

cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.8/
make gconfig // as far as I understand this is to configure the setting on your kernel

there is no such option for my card,

and when I recompile the kernel this are he error after running the make install:

make[1]: `arch/i386/kernel/asm-offsets.s' is up to date.
CHK include/linux/compile.h
Kernel: arch/i386/boot/bzImage is ready
sh /usr/src/linux-2.6.8.1/arch/i386/boot/install.sh 2.6.8 arch/i386/boot/bzImage
System.map ""
depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.6.8/kernel/drivers/net/3c503.ko
depmod: ei_open
depmod: ei_interrupt
depmod: __alloc_ei_netdev
depmod: ei_close
depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.6.8/kernel/drivers/net/8139cp.k
o
depmod: crc32_le
depmod: bitreverse
depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.6.8/kernel/drivers/net/8139too.
ko
depmod: crc32_le
depmod: bitreverse
depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.6.8/kernel/drivers/net/8390.ko
depmod: crc32_le
depmod: bitreverse
depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.6.8/kernel/drivers/net/sis900.k
o
depmod: crc32_le
depmod: bitreverse
depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.6.8/kernel/drivers/net/typhoon.
ko
depmod: crc32_le
depmod: bitreverse
depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.6.8/kernel/sound/core/oss/snd-p
cm-oss.ko
depmod: snd_mixer_oss_ioctl_card
depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.6.8/kernel/sound/drivers/snd-vi
rmidi.ko
depmod: snd_virmidi_new


Any idea????

# CONFIG_SND_ENS1370 is not set
CONFIG_SND_ENS1371=m
# CONFIG_SND_ES1938 is not set
# CONFIG_SND_ES1968 is not set
# CONFIG_SND_MAESTRO3 is not set
# CONFIG_SND_FM801 is not set
# CONFIG_SND_ICE1712 is not set
# CONFIG_SND_ICE1724 is not set
# CONFIG_SND_INTEL8X0 is not set
# CONFIG_SND_INTEL8X0M is not set
# CONFIG_SND_SONICVIBES is not set
# CONFIG_SND_VIA82XX is not set
# CONFIG_SND_VX222 is not set
You need the ac97 plus the intel8X0 if you sound is onboard!
that is my card ESN1371 cheap soundblaster

yes, my problem is that I do see the intel i8x0 and it is selected, but I don't see the option for the ac97, is not giving me that option when I run the "make gconfig" although I do see the file under

/usr/src/linux-2.6.8/sound/pci/AC97

Why is not giving me the option????