Re: Kernal panic

[turnbull@example.com (Stephen J. Turnbull)]

JIm writes:

   It's been awful quiet on this list lately....

Yeah, urusai@example.com is in California this week.  Of 
course things got quiet!

   I've been trying to get Slackware 3.0 to run on a Compaq Prolinea 4/33s.
   It's set up with the factory HD as C and a additional HD on D. I've been
   trying to install Linux to D but keep runing into a kernal panic as soon as
   it gets to the partition check. It says:

Technical point:  This is *after* the partition check,.  AFAIK the
partition check simply reads the table, it doesn't do any consistency
checks.

   Partition check:
     hda: hda1
   Kernal Panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 08:01

Kernel panic is a guaranteed hang, all right ;-)

(1) Why isn't Linux finding both of your disks?  (As Mark d'Arcy
    wrote, it's not clear that "D:" isn't MSDOS partition #2 from the
    way you wrote, but then I don't know swhy Linux doesn't find
    hda2.)  Note that device 08:01 is probably the factory disk, and
    unless you have Linux installed there, it won't be able to mount
    that partition.
    I think that the 1.3.large_number kernels will tell you which file 
    systems they have tried to mount, which might be useful info.  But 
    you'd need to build one.
(2) I've had this messsge.  It invariably resulted from using the
    wrong root partition in the mount option.  I suspect one of the
    following:
    (a) you hvaen't fdisked the D: drive
    (b) you haven't connected the D: drive with a cable or power
        supply
    (c) you haven't mkfs'd the root partition in the D: drive

As I understand it, you are doing the following
- MDSOS or Win95 or other OS on C:, C: is the bootable drive
- putting Linux on D: (separate hardware)

To do this, you need to do something like the following:
1. Make Slackware installation boot/root disks
2. Boot install system from floppy
3. partition new (D:) drive using fdisk (I am very very suspicious
   about the fact that your system only acknowledges hda not hdb;
   where does your CD-ROM drive live?)
4. Start slackware setup, install to second disk drive
5. You should be prompted to make a file system on the relevant
   partition of the second disk drive.  Or maybe you need todo that by
   hand in step 3 before starting slackware setup, but I don't think
   so.
6. Install slackware as usual
7. (optional) install LILO - this may be very difficult, I'm not sure
   how you should do it in this situation.  Probably LILO's boot code should be
   installed to /dev/hda but your boot description of LILO should say
   root=/dev/hdb1.

See anything you forgot?  Anyway, we need a lot more info about what's 
going on to diagnose.  For starters, did you successfully copy
Slackware to the D: drive, or is the kernel panic occuring during the
install process?  Which drive is bootable?  What OS lives there
normally?  Kernel version number.  Etc, etc.

If you successfully booted the installation floppy, and copied
slackware to your "D:" drive, try using the parameters "mount
root=/dev/hdb1" when booting from the installation floppy.

-- 
                            Stephen J. Turnbull
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences                    Yaseppochi-Gumi
University of Tsukuba                      http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp/
Tennodai 1-1-1, Tsukuba, 305 JAPAN                 turnbull@example.com