I have been trying desperately to install Mandrake/Mandriva on my computer and after trying several versions, I finally was able to go through the install process with Mandriva 2005 LE X86_64 download version. The other versions I tried ran into errors writing files.

After the installation completed, my system re-booted and Mandriva started loading, however it quickly froze with this error message:



Mounting root filesystem with flags noatime
mount: error 6 mounting ext2 flags noatime
well, retrying without the option flags
mount: error 6 mounting ext2
well, retrying read-only without any flag
mount: error 6 mounting ext2
pivotroot: pivot_root (/sysroot,/sysroot/initrd) failed: 2
unmount /initrd/sys failed:2
unmount /initrd/proc failed:2
Initrd finished
Freeing unused kernel memory: 220k freed
Kernel Panic - not syncing: No init found. Try passing init = option to kernel.


My computer is a Compaq R4025CA (Amd Athlon 64 3200+) and I am trying to install Mandriva on an external USB 2.0 hard drive. Can anyone tell me what this message means and if there is anyway I can fix it? I really have little knowledge of Linux and would like to get it working so I can start learning. Someone please help me.

I am a newbie as well, but it sounds like your initrd file is corrupt or non-existant. I have seen several HOWTO's with GRUB that say you don't need it, but I haven't been able to get around it. Can you look at the files on your harddrive from another computer? If not, use Knoppix to boot up your computer, and then you can edit your boot files and see if that helps.

I think you may be right. I found a reference to a /usr/src/linux directory while searching for a solution but when I go to /usr/src, there is no linux directory. Is this directory supposed to exist, and what is supposed to be in there? I can view it in Windows with ltools but Knoppix is of no help since my touchpad and keyboard don't seem to work with it.