I'm pretty familiar with computers, but new to linux. I'm trying to install Mandrake 8.1 on a Pentium 166 with 64 megs of ram. Linux will be the only OS on the system. Regardless of whether I use a boot disk made with rawrite or boot directly from CD, before installation actually begins, I get the following error:

VFS:cannot open root device "ram3" or 01:03
Please appen a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic:VFS:unable to mount root fs on 01:03

I've searched far and wide for the answer and I can't find it. I even tryed flopping certain hardware devices out for each other (hardrive, ram, CDROM) thinking maybe there was a hardware prob, but the error remained the same. If anyone has a possible solution it would be greatly appreciated.

-Marc

Hey, I wanted to let you all know that I found a solution to the Kernel Panic under Mandrake 8.1 at 01:03. Somebody on a news group told me to fuss around with the BIOS settings, so I did just that. I messed with everything... and I finally figured it out. It turns out that the problem has something to do with the externel cashe. In my BIOS there were two cashe settings. One for CPU Cashe and the other said External Cashe. All I did was disable the External Cashe and bingo, Mandrake 8.1 booted with no problems. I just wanted to post this follow-up for anyone who might have run into the same problem.

-=Marc=-

Thanks for the follow up! It's odd that external cache can cause that error, but it appears that you have a solution. The big trick is to see if you can get that operational in your installed system.