I'm trying to upgrade the 2.4.10mdk kernel in Mandrake 9.2 to the new 2.6 kernel and have hit a hurdle.

I noticed that there were 2 initrd files :

initrd-2.4.10.mdk.img
and
initrd.img

I think the initrd.img might have had an extension other than img...

The 2 files before I went through the upgrade to the 2.6 kernel were both 600K in size. After, there was only initrd-2.6.0.img, and it was only 72K. Now, linux won't load. As soon as I make a choice from lilo, the screen just goes black. I did make a MandrakeMove CD, so I can at least access my linux drive. Any ideas?

why do you need initrd?

I think it's needed for ext3, which I'm using. I think that the reason I get a dead black screen immediately after lilo is because the kernel can't read the filesystem. I'm betting that I'll have to reload everything, but I'm hoping that someone will either have an easy get-around or will tell me that I'm all screwed up about the cause of my problem and help me down the right path.

you dont need initrd (its got nothing to do with ext3). can you post your lilo.conf here pls?
also, post your /etc/fstab.
also, when you say your screen goes blank, is it after the fs has been mounted, and all modules loaded (like while startin X, for which ur runlevel would be 5 - if this is the case, its not a kernel issue[just X] change to runlevel 2 and see)? or is it before that (some kinda kernel panic while mounting the root fs)?

also, did you go through all the steps needed after building your kernel? did you copy the kernel image to /boot, copy the System.map to /boot, and foremost, did you run lilo as root?

Well, I can't access my linux drive w/ MandrakeMove. I think it's time to reload. But first, here are the error messages I get when trying to boot into failsafe mode:

Error inserting '/lib/ext3.ko': -1 unknown symbol in module
Error 19 mounting ext3 flags defaults
pivotroot: pivot_root(/sysroot,/sysroot/initrd) failed: 2
.
.
.
kernel panic: No init found. try passing init: option to kernel

zzzt:

If you're getting a blank screen immediately *after* lilo (the kernel is loaded succesfully from lilo), your problem probably has to do with the framebuffer. Did you enable the fb in menuconfig? If so, did you enable any drivers for it?

The kernel only tries to access your filesystem after loading drivers and the like. Thus, if it's having trouble accessing your FS, the error message will look something like: "VFS: unable to mount fs blah blah blah". I'd bet a dollar your problem is related to video hardware, if you're just getting a blank screen after lilo succesfully (?) loads the 2.6 kernel.

The real question is, did you back up your old kernel, or did you perhaps just add a new entry in your lilo.conf for the new kernel (so that you can choose which kernel to use on startup)? If not, you may have to format/reinstall. (I don't know anything about MandrakeMove)

rk