The problem started when I installed a new Asus motherboard K8v SE Deluxe edition and a 3200++ AMD 64 cpu. My redhat 9.0 kernel version 2.6.X.X usually booted from a floppy but now when I try to boot it, it gives me the following error: Kernel Panic: No init found. Try passing init = option to kernel. How can I fix this?? Anyone, please?!

Have you tried with your rescue CD. You can fix some things then but you first need to find out what's wrong. A lot of results turn up if you google on your error

See, thats the thing though, I do not have the rescue cd. If I can download it from somewhere, I will be more than happy to do that and see if it helps.

Also, I think the problem is that the harddrive location changed, like from /dev/hde1 to something else...

if the harddrive location is changed, you could give the root= as kernel parameter, so when the diskette boots I guess you get some command line where you select the kernel to boot, that's where you type: <kernelname> root=/dev/hdXX, where XX is the location of the / (root) partition. like /dev/hda1 or /dev/hdb3... try a few of these.

greetz,
.-=~ iluvatar ~=-.

Thnx, I will try some of those commands and see if they help... I'll get back to you soon.

Unfortunately, the commands do not work (although I may be getting the syntax wrong).

assuming it's an IDE drive, the first channel's first connector is hda, the second connector is hdb, the second channel's first connector is hdc and the last one is hdd. so you could check wich one to use if you open up the case. the number is the partition number, so if you have a swap first and the root partition after that, you should use 2 etc. for example I have my root partition on the first IDE channel's first connector on the third partition so I use /dev/hda3...

this can't be a master/slave setting on the drives? guess not but you might check it...

does this motherboard support hardware raid? in that case, maybe you have to disable this first in the bios...

greetz && succes,
.-=~ iluvatar ~=-.

you could try to get a Live-CD like Knoppix - it is then a very comfortable job to find out what happened on or with your drive, because you can look into it - mount it - fix the error...
Or get a rescue-floppy or another installation-CD from any distribution, they usually allow you to boot up a small rescue-system. You may even have these already if you occasionally read computer-magazines - often they have some trial-version of some linux on them.
...Don't you have your redhat install-mediums? They shoul do the job.

Jochen

The harddrive is plugged into the raid but I have already dissabled it in the bios - so its working like a regular ide drive. The thing is though, which drive is it now? The raid connector - there is only one on the mobo + there are two ide connectors. Thnx in advance.

could it be sata? perhaps your red hat kernel supported your old sata controller, so the hard drive worked fine, but doesnt support the new one? going out on a limb there.

If you disabled the raid already there is not much (_nothing_) to gain from keeping it plugged to this connector.
And you could get your system back in a snap.
If you plug it into (the first) ide-connector, the hardware-layout would be the same as it was before - provided that you had it plugged to ide 1 with your previous motherboard...
At least you would then know exactly what to type in to use your rescue-floppy - if you know how the layout was while it was working...

With my rescue/boot disc from Debian/GNU the procedure was like this:

bios set to boot from floppy - insert it - turn on the machine - do nothing --> and the machine boots up like you know it

if you need the rescue-cababilities:
bios set to boot from floppy - insert it - turn on the machine - at the prompt, which stays there a few seconds, write: rescue root=/dev/hda1 (if your root-filesystem is on the first partition of the first disc and this disc is plugged into the primary ide-controller)
the kernel on the rescue disc then boots up and then it tries to access the root-filesystem - and with what you wrote in your command you tell the kernel, where to look for this - if it is not correct (not the place where you told it it wold be), the kernel does not know how to continue and stops with the message you already know --> kernel panic: No init found

You could then examine and change (make backups) the files which probably need changes as for instance /etc/fstab and - if you are using it - /etc/lilo.conf
To use raid, you'll probably need to have a kernel which is capable to do this --> recompile with the options needed - as far as I know it does not work by just using a raid-capable motherboard.

What about the Live-CD or another rescue-disc or -floppy - have you tried?

Jochen

Thank you very much everyone! I was able to boot into my redhat 9.0. What I did was download the cd1 of redhat install, ran it, checked where my hard drive was - (I had to replug it from the raid controller)- and than ran the boot up disk with the following parameters:

linux root = /dev/hdc3

The problem, however, now is that I need to change the drive address permanently so I do not have to type that in all the time during boot up. Any suggestions?

you could change this on your boot-diskette permanently - but I would not go this way, now that you know how to use that to get to your system in case somthing is not working as expected.
At least I would strogly recommend having another boot-disc ready which is working and not altered (backup/copy).

Everyone wants to do It as easy and comfortable as it can get: you really should install a boot-manager like lilo or grub - with lilo being my favorite, because I know how to set it up. Booting from diskette is error-prone and slow too - why do that if you don't have to.

I'm sure RedHat has packages for either of these boot-managers and the install-procedure will probably help you to set it up properly.

Here I told someone else among other things how one could do that:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...69#post1074969

-you could just leave out the lines with map, install, bitmap and bmp

type "man lilo" after you installed it (right at the top of the manual is a simple config-file you could almost use...) - or read the documentation before doing so on the net if you fear it will destroy something.
But it will not - it will ask you if you actually want it to install itself to your drives boot-sector
-and it can't do that: worst thing that could happen if you misconfigure it is that you would use your boot-diskette again :-) and then fix what went not as expected.

with boot=/dev/hda you would tell it on which disc to install
with image=/boot/linux-2.6.7 you would tell it, where to find the kernel it should boot

anyway:
To copy your boot-diskette you would need to use the "dd" command to copy it to hard-disc and then another to make a new one:
--> dd if=/dev/fd0 of=_some_filename_for_what_is_the _content_of_the_floppy_
--> dd if=_the_filename_and_path_of_the_file_from_the_line_above_ of=/dev/fd0

and to change it to boot your kernel without action on your part - as it was:

"rdev" could do that but I'm not familiar with its use - lilo or another boot-manager is the way you should go.

I do appriciate the suggestion but the thing with lilo is that it does not work too well with win xp - which is one the other hard drive. Do you know how I can just edit the /etc/fstab file instead. I already changed the swap location in it to point to the new drive but the actually root is more complicated. Any ideas how I can do that?? THanx everyone for your help.

I put in the output of some commands - but all the nice formatting got lost while posting - sorry for that - its now a bit difficult to read...

1.)
Is that your experience or did you hear this?

lilo works perfectly for me and WinXP - I have the following layout:

just one disc on ide 1:

Jonathan:/home/jochen# cfdisk
cfdisk 2.12

Festplatte: /dev/hda
Size: 120060444672 bytes, 120.0 GB
Heads: 255 Sectors per Track: 63 Cylinders: 14596

Name Flags Part. Typ Dateisystemtyp [Bezeichner] Size (MB)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
hda1 Boot Primäre NTFS [^A] 15998,17
hda2 Primäre Linux ext3 39999,54
hda3 Primäre Linux ext3 20003,89
hda5 Logische Linux 296,12
hda6 Logische Linux ext3 43758,49



lilo is installed to the boot-sector and it has always worked flawlessly - also with prior versions of Windows installed.

here is my /etc/fstab:

Jonathan:/home/jochen# cat /etc/fstab
# Begin /etc/fstab

# filesystem mount-point fs-type options dump fsck-order

# windows-xp - muss angepasst werden !
#/dev/hda1 / ntfs defaults 0 0

#das root-filesystem
/dev/hda2 / ext3 defaults 0 1


/dev/hda5 / swap pri=1 0 0

proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=4,mode=620 0 0
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs defaults 0 0

#freie 40 GB Partition
#/dev/hda6 /mnt/extra ext3 users,noauto,exec,dev,suid 0 2
/dev/hda6 /mnt/extra ext3 defaults 0 2


# Brenner
#/dev/scd1 /mnt/brenner auto ro,noauto,user,noexec,unhide 0 0
/dev/hdd /mnt/brenner auto ro,noauto,user,noexec,unhide 0 0

# DVD
#/dev/scd0 /mnt/dvd auto ro,noauto,user,noexec,unhide 0 0
/dev/hdc /mnt/dvd auto ro,noauto,user,noexec,unhide 0 0

/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto rw,nodev,noexec,user,noauto 0 0

#192.168.0.11:/ /mnt/nfs nfs noauto,users,exec,suid,dev,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,async 0 0

# End /etc/fstab

the WinXP entry is not active (and also not correct) because whe write-support to NTFS-Partitions is - as far as I know - not really safe yet and I do not really need to move files around between the two Systems - I almost always use linux.

Just as easy as you could change the entry for your swap-partition you can do it for your root-partition...

You have 3 partitions, right? Then the following paragraph probably does not apply, as one is for WinXP, one for linux and one is your linux-swap partition...

But - beware: I have seen it with Suse and RedHat might do it too - your boot process may run with the help of an initrd (initial ram-disc) - a separate, rather small /boot partition would indicate this.
You will need to consult your documentation on how RedHat has organized this - there is no way for me to find that out.

That does not make it much more difficult to install lilo - you just have to know how these things are organized to be able to set things up correctly.

BTW: seems like you plugged your drive into the second and not the first ide-controller - your line to boot yuor system indicates that...
" linux root = /dev/hdc3 " --> /dev/hdc3 is the third partition (hdc3) as the master-drive (hda and hdc are master's) on the second ide-controller (hda and hdb are the first, hdc and hdd the second)
If you plug it to the first controller your root partition would become /dev/hda3 again - and would needed to be changed in fstab.