Kernel Panic: could not find kernel image
 

Hi:

My 64-bit AMD desktop is in kernel panic mode.

I tried using the Live Slackware DVD and at the prompt I typed:
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt. The konsole than returned: Could not find kernel image. So I tried typing huge.s to see if it would boot the kernel.

Do I have to complete a fresh installation of Slackware?

The screen went to black and than displayed this message:

mismatch kernel and glibc or missing file system modules to read disk.

you probably trying boot from older Slackware cd/dvd to boot later versions Slackware root disk.

Here's some more details about the circumstances:

This desktop has 2 hard drives.
The 500 GB HDD Western Digital is what I installed Slackware to over the summer.
The new drive that I just installed last week is a Seagate 1 TB HDD and I installed Debian on it.

The first installation of Debian failed. It would take me to a log-in, I'd log in the screen flashed black and
took me directly back to log-in again. Due to the failure I re-installed Debian again and the second install worked properly.

Before I installed Debian I edited the lilo.conf file with a argument letting LILO know about Debian:
I didn't have sound at the first boot of Debian nor at all the other previous boots either.
I booted into Slackware yesterday and the video's would play for a minute but crash.
After rebooting into Slackware I'm stuck in kernel panic mode.
I put the Slackware DVD in the CDROM drive and shut down the tower.

Once the Slackware DVD boots I don't know what to try at this point.

The Live Slackware DVD I'm booting with is Slackware 14.1-

Can anything be done at this point or do I need to re-install?

That's not the Linux console, it's the bootloader prompt. You can specify the name of one of the kernel images on the DVD and various parameters, but you cannot run commands.

Have you tried booting the system by following the onscreen instructions? Those that start with "In a pinch, you can boot your system from here..."?

If you type huge.s root=/dev/sda1 rdinit= ro (note the space after rdinit=), the bootloader will load the "huge.s" kernel from the DVD, which in turn will try to mount /dev/sda1 as the root file system. If you installed Slackware to a partition other than /dev/sda1, modify the command line accordingly.

Maybe your disk has older version Slackware, it is best and easy just reinstall with new Slackware.

Live DVD is not same as installation DVD, if you arleady has live DVD then you already has a working slackware, you just need lsblk to see all disk, and then use mount command to chose disk to mount.

If I recall correctly it's kernel 3.10. but I don't remember the extension-
I haven't booted the system by following the onscreen instructions because the on screen instructions take me directly into a fresh installation.

Do you mean that there should not be a space after rdinit= it should look like this instead?

It mounts your root file system and boots the installed Slackware system using the kernel from the DVD. It does not start the installer.
There should definitely be a space after rdinit=. It means "do not use the supplied RAM disk image":

Ok, thanks; Ser Olmy:-

At the bootloader prompt I'll type it the way you've posted it in code tags.

Once it boots the installed Slackware os what should I do from there?
(aside from looking in /var/log to find out what's going on)

The error message says the kernel can't mount root, so you should check /etc/lilo.conf and make sure the root directive specifies the right partition. It looks like the current setting is /dev/sda2, actually.

If you make any changes to lilo.conf, remember to run lilo afterwards to apply the changes to the bootloader.

Booting the Live Slackware DVD now....

I'll post what I see in lilo.conf so you can see it, bb-

The Slackware DVD does not contain a live system, just the installer.

I tried to look at the /etc/lilo.conf at the boot prompt but that's not working.
After a few min's it appeared to boot the kernel image and now I'm being asked for info. on the keyboard-
What am I doing wrong?

Then you must have tried to run some sort of command from the boot prompt, which obviously didn't work. Eventually the default kernel booted with no options, leading you straight to the installer. That is not what you wanted.

This is what you need to do:

1. Boot from the DVD
2. At the boot prompt, type huge.s root=/dev/sda1 rdinit= ro and press Enter
3. Wait as the kernel loads and the system boots
4. Log in and troubleshoot the boot issue

If step 3 doesn't get you to the login prompt, try specifying /dev/sda2 as the root file system. If it still doesn't work, make a note of any error messages and return here.

I tried steps 1-3 and never make it to log in. I also tried /dev/sda2 as well--
After the kernel loads this is what I have:

The prompt is flashing as well as the lights on the keyboard and the keyboard is temporarily not working.

That's normal when the kernel can't find a file system on the specified partition.

Have you actually installed any flavor of Linux on this system?

Yes, I installed Slackware 14.1 on the Western Digital 500 GB HDD (sda1) in July of 2014 and it was running fine until
yesterday.

I installed Debian on the 1 TB HDD last week.(dev/sdb1)

You should read http://slackbook.org/html/index.html first and understand some basic concept of unix.

First all, how many hard disks you are planning to use, how is each disk partitioned?

physical disk 1 from bios, usually called /dev/sda
physical disk 2 from bios, usually called /dev/sdb
your dvd player might be called /dev/sdc or /dev/cdrom

partition1 on first disk; called /dev/sda1
partition2 on second disk called /dev/sdb2

Do you even know where is your old Slackware installed at?

if you know, then mount it to /mnt, and find your way to lilo.conf file and then using vi editor find line says
if your kernel is older < 3.10.7 you need to find and change
save these changes and run command
lilo -A /dev/sdx# <active the slackware partion
lilo -M /dev/sdx mbr < update physical disk mbr record

run plain lilo again just make sure every thing is in order, no errors.

Did anything in particular happen yesterday? Did you by any chance update either OS (Slackware or Debian)?

It would be helpful to know the exact partition layout of your hard drives. Could you post the output from fdisk -l /dev/sda and fdisk -l /dev/sdb? Just boot from the Slackware DVD, select a language and press Enter at the login prompt. You will then find yourself at a command prompt from where you can run fdisk

My Slackware filesystem is gone/hosed.

I booted w/o the Slackware DVD and typed F11 several times to boot to the 1 TB HDD.

Debian is the first os in the Grub Menu and Slackware is the second choice.

There is no sign of my 500 GB Toshiba HDD and the Slackware I installed on it-
-::-I would like to know what happened to my Slackware os and what hosed it?-::-

you can't have 2 OS on 2 different disk drive and both called /dev/sda1; when you add additional disk drive; driver letter changes and it might switch order.

never mind I misread your last comments about Slackware on /dev/sdb1

So you're saying that fdisk -l /dev/sda returns an error? And/or that there is no /dev/sda device node?

I updated Debian a few days ago and upon doing so I got this error:
The 2 GB swap and the EXT 4 journaling file system I created for Slackware on sda1 and sda2 is gone:-

Sadly,/dev/sda doesn't exist.
-:-I can't even see the 500 GB HDD from my Debian os under devices-:-

issue the fdisk command as root in debian and what is the ouput of lspci

another thing is to check all cables to disk are seated correctly

there is space between -l and /dev/sda

you can use parted /dev/sda print to see partition table if you don't have fdisk/ and disk system using efi.

That error message isn't telling you the drive is gone. It says you can't run the fdisk command, probably due to insufficient privileges. Try: sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda
So, to be clear: ls /dev/sda returns an error?

Using the Debian terminal running that cmd doesn't return anything but this:

Well, /dev/sda is clearly there, but fdisk doesn't seem able to access it.

The drive could very well be defective. Try:

I guess you don't have smartmontools installed. You could apt-get install smartmontools or use a live distribution like System Rescue CD which has most of these tools included.

I'll have to look and see in the stack of DVD's that I have if I have a System Rescue CD.
I think I do have one-

Debian certainly has a smartmontools package available, so I don't know why apt-get can't find it.

run then try installing smartmontools

I took a picture of Grub after I typed e for edit so you can see what I have.

what happens if you unplug the cable to the debian hard drive then try to boot the slackware drive, either directly or with the slackware dvd.

I would have to kill the power to the case and unplug the 1 TB drive and I really don't want to do that.
--That would be my last thing on my list I would want to try--
I was very careful when I installed the new 1 TB HDD.

I'm looking for the Rescue CD so I can see if the smartmontools are on the disk.

Booting the 'System Rescue CD' I choose boot into a 64 bit Linux Graphical GUI with other choices.

What can I run for you in the Rescue Terminal in order for you to get the information you need to help me?


@Ser Olmy:
I downloaded the smartmontools from the link you posted; thanks.

The Slackware partition's are there-

I tried running the smartcltl cmd after installing the smartmontools-

I think it's fairly safe to say that this drive is history.

If it was me, I would first recheck cables, then if that doesn't work, try with the debian drive disconnected and lastly with cables installed as orginally before the debian drive was added, before calling the slackware drive dead.tt

If in fact this drive is history I won't be able to install any distribution on it and the installer will fail.
I'll try to install Slackware again and see if it works. If not that I'll know (past experience) that the drive is done for-

If the drive isn't done for than the only other thing I'm thinking is that; not being able to mount the /dev/sda2 partiton is because the kernel rolled over and died.

Checking the cables is a good idea I'll look and see.
I hate taking that case apart but it looks like the only other thing to try aside from seeing if a fresh install sticks.

I hope the drive isn't history as I just purchased it 6 months ago.

Would kernel panic cause a drive to go south?

I'd say it's the other way around, a drive going south would cause the kernel to panic. In any case, I'd like to second what colorpurple21859 said, disconnect the debian drive, and check cables on the Slackware drive (if possible, replace them). Then, you might try booting from your rescue cd/dvd and issue the smartctl command from there. If you keep getting the same results, then most probably the drive is gone.

As a final test, I would try the drive in another computer, just to discard hardware problems on the original system.

I tried to install Slackware to the drive and no dice. After typing cfdisk to start partitioning I got:
I also tried to install Linux Mint and when I was finished creating the necessary partitions I got:
I'll disconnect the cables and take the case apart tomorrow; too late tonight-

-:- I don't think that HDD would fit in my Sony Vaio to try and see if it works.-:-

Probably not... :)

But with a USB hard disk enclosure, it would be possible.

I'll have to purchase an enclosure for the drive.

I think you guys are right about the drive.
I wiped the drive last night with Dariks Boot And Nook. And tried to install Slackware. It's not happening.

The power supply plug is in the way to the 500 GB HDD.

I played tug of war with the power supply for about 20 min's and can't get it.
So...I'm going to have to wait for a friend of mine to take care of it and in the meantime I'll purchase an enclosure for it.

I'll install Slackware alongside Mint maybe tomorrow-

Can you recommend a zero fill application for drive that's giving me issue's?