I just finished installing 11 on my Dell 1650 1U using adaptec.s. The install completed without an incident. Howerver on boot I get the above error and the server just halted . Here is the error from the console:

...
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k block-major-8, errno=2
VFS: cannot open root device "803" or 08:03
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 08:03
<blinking cursor>

Looking around the culprit seems to be the linuxrc script on initrd. The only way I get it to boot is from the distro CD and this command at boot:

adaptec.s root=/dev/sda3 noinitrd ro

I tried with modifying /etc/lilo.conf and added

root = /dev/sda3 noinitrd

but it didn't help. I wonder if /etc/lilo.conf is read directly on boot. What am I missing?

Does anyone have any suggestion on how I may resolve this?

TIA,

iJaba

I was fortunate to communicate with Patrick Volkerding (of Slackware) and he helped identify the actual cause and provided a solution. I thought I'd share it here.

During the installation I misread the KERNEL SELECTION section and didn't install the adaptec.s kernel, so I had the wrong kernel installed.

Following Patrick's direction:

1. Boot from install CD
2. rm /boot/vmlinuz (the symlink)
3. cp /mnt/cdrom/kernels/adaptec.s/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz
4. reinstall lilo (using liloconfig)
5. reboot

In my case it is all good afterwards. Many thanks to Patrick!

Cheers,

iJaba