Kernel Panic: Could not load init
 

Hi,

I have a dual boot linux/windowsXP machine. I had Fedora Core 4 running (dual booting with Windows XP (primary OS)), when I opted to transition to Slackware. I downloaded the 10.2 installation set, and proceeded to install the OS. Despite a small problem with GRUB and LILO, that I resolved by installing Lilo on the MBR, the installation seemed to go well.

That said, I'm unable to boot slackware without a "Kernel Panic: Could not find init" error message. I'm at a loss to figure out what's going on, and I'm looking for help. I can boot into my linux parition from the boot CD, but if I try booting into it without the CD, I get that error message.

Please note I don't have a floppy drive.

The specifics of my machine are as follows:

Drive partitioning:

/dev/hda1 - Boot flag - NTFS (Windows XP 'C' drive)
/dev/hda2 - Linux, ext3 - / (Linux root /)

/dev/hdb1 - fat32 - FAT drive
/dev/hdb2 - NTFS
/dev/hdb3 - Boot flag - 83 ext3 - '/home
/dev/hdb4 - 83 ext3 - /usr

Specs:

Dual Xeon Processors
2GB RAM
E7525 Intel Chipset
X6DA8-G2 SuperMicro MB
2x SATA hard-drives
x850 PCI-X ATI vid. card
Creative Audigy 2


Any ideas on what could be causing this?

Regards,

Vmt

Do you have a swap partition?

No, I don't. I'm under the impression I don't really need one anyways because of my RAM.

Regards,

Vmt

Could be:
1. Wrong entry in lilo.conf
2. Wrong emtry in fstab
3. No support for ext3 in your kernel (BTW reiserfs is a better choice)
What kernel parameters are you passing to successfully boot from CD?
You obviously don't lack RAM, but it's still a good idea to have a small amount of swap space available. I use a 512K swapfile located in /root to avoid having to have another partition.
The minimum swap size is just 4K. Seems to me that a swapfile of just 64K (enough for a few pages of memory) should be enough to give the kernel a spot to 'breathe' a little.
Post the contents of your fstab, please. And what kernel are you using?

Thank you for pointing me in the right direction gnashley,

You were correct - it was an incorrect lilo entry. Specifically, it was mounting my /home partition (hdb3) rather than the root parition (hda2).

I edited lilo.conf such that it mounted to root partition first, and all works well now.

Many thanks,

vmt1