zip slack doesnt boot
 

Hi,

I am having a problem with zip slack.
I installed it on a fat32 partition
There is only one partition on the drive.
and extracted the folder to c:\linux

booted with a windows 98 startup disk

This is the error I get
************************************

VFS: Cannot open root device "hda1" or 03:01
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:01

*******************************************

I edited the linux.bat file and tried all the different root= options
but none worked.


Contents of Linux.bat

*****************************************************
rem Boot Linux. You'll need to edit this file to boot the correct
rem partition. In the uncommented line below, edit the 'root=/dev/XXXX'
rem to refer to the partition where you've unzipped the root Linux partition.
rem If you put it on a Zip disk, it'll probably be on the fourth partition,
rem since that's how Iomega likes to format them. If you're using a parallel
rem port Zip drive then see the readme.ppa for more info about configuring
rem the drive with some kernel parameters at the end of the loadlin command.
rem
rem Here are some SCSI Zip examples:
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/sda4 rw
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/sdb4 rw
rem These are examples of IDE Zip devices:
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hda4 rw
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb4 rw
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hdc4 rw
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hdd4 rw
rem These examples are for IDE hard drives:
\linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 rw
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 rw
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 rw
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hda4 rw
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hda5 rw
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hda6 rw
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hda7 rw
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hda8 rw
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hda9 rw
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hda10 rw
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hda11 rw
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hda12 rw
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hda13 rw
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hda14 rw
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hda15 rw
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb1 rw
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb2 rw
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb3 rw
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb4 rw
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb5 rw
rem \linux\loadlin \linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb6 rw

thanks,
Nic

Is your harddrive the primary master? You can check in your BIOS. Unfortunatley, DOS and earlier Windows systems would name the first viable (fat or fat32) partition it found, so if it was on the slave, it would still be c:. However, if it is a slave drive, it wouldn't be hda in Linux.

Also worth bearing in mind... some computers came with a hidden partition before the "c:" drive, so that could be hda1.

If I were you I would get a copy of something like tomsrtbt, boot from it and check to see what partition letter/number you should be using.

Just a couple of thoughts for you.

It actually isn't the primary master.
I did not realise this could become an issue.

Will give it a try,

thanks
Nic

It worked!
I set my hdd to primary master and now it is fine.

The only problem is that the boot process still halts on another error,

The last 3 lines of output are:

*********************************

UMSDOS: changed to alternate root
VFS: Mounted root (UMSDOS FILESYSTEM)
Freeing unused kernel memory: 144k freed

*********************************

After that the machine just hangs.

Nic