Vmware esxi 4.1 boot up problem
 

Dear Linux Gods:

I just installed VMware esxi 4.1 on HP Dl320 and during boot up I get the following errors:

VFS: Cannot open root device "LABEL=_/" or 00:00
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic - VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 00:00


I cannot get past this error and it hangs.

Oh, I am new to Linux.

Any suggestion is greatly appreciated.

Greetingz & Welcome to LQ!

Well, I would recommend passing a "root=/dev/sda1" option at boot-up. I don't know much about ESXi (I heard it boots off a USB stick or something).
Should the previous suggestion fail, I would recommend grabbing a Linux boot-disk of some sort so you can take a look at your hard drive and check the partition table.

Because, heck, the actual root device could be any of the following;
root=/dev/sda1
root=/dev/sda2
root=/dev/vg00/lv0

EDIT: As you mentioned you were new to Linux, you're probably wondering where to go to actually specifiy this "root=" nonsense.

1) The Boot Manager should be called "GRUB".
2) The boot-up screen might look like this, just press "e" to edit.
3) Use your arrow key to go all the way over to the right of each line, look for "root=" somewhere.
4) Mess with that "root=" part (the change is only temporary).
5) Now boot it, see if it worked.

If you *do* figure this out, then you'll have to go into the grub.conf file and change the "root=" line to whichever worked, so take notes!