Hi to all. From a DVD I installed Slackware 14 on /dev/sda2 ext4. Windows XP is on /dev/sda1. Bootloader is lilo. I followed the instructions exactly, there were no errors until reboot. A lilo wellcome screen asked : windows or slackware. Here are the error messages : SRST failed, kernel panic not syncing VFS unable to mount root fs on unknown block (8,2), please append a correct "root=" boot option, mount_block_root, mount_root, prepare_namespace, kernel_init, start_kernel, kernel_thread_helper then booting is interrupted. Always at this point.
I made a USB stick, but BIOS does not provide USB booting :-)
question : is there a way of repairing the install ? thanks for your help, this time it was - almost - good...
PS HD showed no errors on testing, I formatted it to ext4 from the Slackware installer (12 GB), partitions were made with fdisk and parted, root is set bootable, there is a swap partition 2 GB, home was mounted to /home. windows was also mounted during install. Full install, xfce

Hi again, I booted up with parted magic. There I changed this in lilo.conf : instead of /boot/vmlinuz I copy-pasted vmlinuz kernel huge 3.2.29
it then booted straight into a login !!! and I have mail ( but I don't know where ). Anyway, I logged in and with a startx I emerged in a very rustic xfce4 - OMG,OMG !! slackware lives ... (solved)

If you're getting the lilo prompt, then just try appending root=/dev/sda2 and see what happens. If that doesn't work, then you can boot off of the install dvd and do the same from there. That should get you into your system and from there you can have a look at /etc/lilo.conf and try and see what is wrong. Don't forget to run /sbin/lilo once you have fixed/updated it.

edit: ahh, good, I see you've already fixed it. Nevermind.

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Hi again, I booted up with parted magic. There I changed this in lilo.conf : instead of /boot/vmlinuz I copy-pasted vmlinuz kernel huge 3.2.29
it then booted straight into a login !!! and I have mail ( but I don't know where ). Anyway, I logged in and with a startx I emerged in a very rustic xfce4 - OMG,OMG !! slackware lives ... (solved)

Thanks Gazl, will run /sbin/lilo ( from terminal as root I suppose) asap. I just wonder if booting with the huge kernel poses any problem ?
This installation made my day.

---------- Post added 08-14-13 at 08:49 PM ----------

Thanks Gazl, will run /sbin/lilo ( from terminal as root I suppose) asap. I just wonder if booting with the huge kernel poses any problem ?
This installation made my day.

if it's booting now, you shouldn't need to run lilo again (but it won't hurt if you do)


As for the huge kernel, I know many people use it, but it's recommended to move to the generic kernel when convenient. Read /boot/README.initrd on your slackware installation for details.

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bash-4.2# /sbin/lilo
Warning: LBA32 addressing assumed
Added Windows *
Added Linux
One warning was issued.
now on to reading the fine manual...

Yep, that's nothing to worry about.

I'd recommend the following 3 lines at the beginning of your lilo.conf:
compact
lba32
large-memory