Kernel panic cannot open root device "0" ???
 

I just got lilo installed to the MBR and now I get a Kernel Panic, cannot
open root device at "0" or unknown block (0,0)
Please append a correct root= boot device

Does this mean I need to change LILO to read something like Root= /dev/hda1?

The most likely error is that you do not have a correct pointer to your initrd. Could you post the contents of /etc/lilo.conf and we can check it out.

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Steve Stites

I will post as much as I can, another thing is every time I reboot I have to reinstall LILO by running liloconfig because it is not there when i first boot from the cd.

This is what lilo.conf looks like..........

append=" vt.default_utf8=0"
boot = /dev/hda
timeout=1200
vga=773
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /proc
label = linux
read-only

I left out the framebuffer stuff.

I think that you closed your earlier thread a little too soon;-)

When you boot from the CD, a virtual filesystem is created with all the expected directories such as "/etc". This is _not_ the same as the filesystem on your hard drive, unless you use the "root=/dev/hda1" parameter when booting, but my guess is you didn't. You should mount your hard drive (the installer will do this for you if you want, or you can just do "mount /dev/hda1 /mnt"). Then if you ls /mnt you will see another root-looking filesystem. This is the actual one on your disk. At this point you can issue "chroot /mnt" to temporarily make the filesystem under /mnt the root filesystem. You need to do this before doing liloconfig because otherwise it will install lilo.conf to /etc/lilo.conf (ie. to the virtual filesystem) rather than to /mnt/etc/lilo.conf (your real filesystem). That's why it "disappears" after you reboot.

Brian

Yes - that should point to your root filesystem device. The entry root=/proc is not right. Follow the instructions on the install cd/dvd - something like "hugesmp.s root=/dev/hda1 rdinit= ro" at the lilo prompt to boot then fix lilo.conf and rerun lilo.

I mounted the filesystem on the HD, did chroot /mnt and typed liloconfig, but...... I am getting the same error I got originally when i installed slack:

Fatal: open /dev/sda : no such device or address
Sorry but the attempt to install lilo has failed.... Etc.

I dont know what /dev/sda is, on this computer thats what I use to mount my camera.

Can I manually edit lilo.conf and enter the parameters from a working lilo.conf, such as the one on the computer I am using now?

Thanks.

Ok, I think I am making progress.

I added /dev/hda to the boot section of lilo.conf
and I added root = /dev/hda1

and rebooted to the hd and now I am not getting the kernel panic but
I do get this error:

An error occurred during the root filesystem check,
you will be allowed to log into single user mode to fix the probelem.

It says something about ext2 but I am using reiserfs.

Try something like this.

Should both entried be sda? Isnt that for SCSI devices or something?
I will give it a try and see.. :)

/dev/sd* is for SCSI, SATA, USB, ect. devices. The older IDE PATA devices will be on /dev/hd*. You can look in /proc/partitions to see what's available, or at least recognized by the kernel.

By fixing lilo, that should eliminate this error message and allow me to boot normally?

"An error occurred during the root filesystem check,
you will be allowed to log into single user mode to fix the probelem.

This problem has nothing to do with lilo. It means that your filesystem has problems. You need to run fsck in order to find and fix whatever errors you have in your filesystem. Here is an explanation of fsck:

http://linux.die.net/man/8/fsck

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Steve Stites

I Just did that and I still get the same error.
FSCK did not find any corruptions and did not report any problems.

When the system reboots I have an error that says "Cannot find / in fstab or mtab"
what does that mean?

And when I look at fstab is says "in use" under the /

When I login as root all the filesystem is read only and I cannot modify anything.
Maybe I am logging into the VFS still? I dont know.

I just tried to reinstall lilo and I got the warning " /proc/partitions does not exist,
disk scan bypassed. and "LBS32 addressing assumed"