Re: [tlug] Kernel/device/FS boot problem

[Edward Middleton <emiddleton@example.com>]

David J Iannucci wrote:
> I wonder if anyone here can provide a clue to get me moving in the
> right direction on a problem I'm having.  I've got Gentoo installed on
> my new Lenovo Thinkpad X61 tablet.  I'm trying to rebuild the kernel
> (to latest version 2.6.24-r4), and I think I've got everything included
> in it that should be there, but when I boot, it crashes halfway through
> with this message:
>
>   VFS: Cannot open root device "sda6" or unknown-block(0,0)
>   Please append a correct "root=" boot option; here are the available
>   partitions: Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs
>   on unknown-block(0,0)

My advice would be to use genkernel to setup the kernel and initrd boot. 
 If you do this then you will be able to boot to a limited shell to 
debug even if you can't find the driver for the root filesystem.  I have 
found this very useful while debugging encrypted root filesystems on lvm 
on raid1 setup.

Edward