Re: Kernal panic

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

Jim--

   >(1) Why isn't Linux finding both of your disks?  (As Mark d'Arcy
[snip]
   Linux setup did find both disks. It gave me the choice of where to install
   and I chose the D partition.

[snip]
   >    (c) you haven't mkfs'd the root partition in the D: drive

   Hmmm, ???

This only applies in case you haven't managed to copy slackware to it.

   >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)

   MS DOS is sitting on C: The additional hard drive is 1.08 GB partitioned
   into 512 MB and 570 MB. D: is the 512 partition. BTW, Compaq said I couldn't
   install another internal drive, but an engineer friend made a caddy for it

I can't believe you left this information out in your original post.
Funky hardware configuration is the cause of more problems when it's
there, but normal hardware usually it's an installation problem.

   and daisey chained it off the sound card. Winblows, since deleted, had no
   problems with it. I'm trying to make this a linux only machine. Once it's
   up, MSDOS goes too.

   >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.

   I tried this and now it hangs at:

   Partition check:
     sda: sda1
     ^^^
In other words, you have the new drive hanging off one of those sbpcd
Sound Blaster/SCSI thingees.  Man, I just don't have time to enumerate
the things that could go wrong with this.  This is *not* a vanilla
configuration, this is sort of a
Peanut-Brittle-Banana-Crunch-Toffee-Sherbet configuration.

I don't necessarily expect things to blow up, but they could go wrong.

     hda: hda1
   UMSDOS Beta 0.6 (compatibility level 0.4, fast msdos)
   Mounting root
   VFS: Mounted root (umsdos filesystem).

   Crashhhhhhhhhhh aaahhhrrgggggg (not really;-)

What??!!!?!  It found a partition at /dev/hdb1 after denying the
existence of the drive at /dev/hdb?  try again with 
mount root=/dev/hda1 and/or mount root=/dev/sda1.

   I'm thinking I should reformat D: or reinstall to C: and try to make D:
   available to Linux.

If you got this far AND have backed up any important data from the old 
system, I suggest
(1) boot your installation floppies in installation mode.
    If they show drives at /dev/hda and /dev/sda, and a CD-ROM at
    /dev/sbpcd (or wherever the "thingee" lives)
    THEN
(2) simply install Linux to /dev/hda1 and figure that adding a line
    like 
    /dev/sda1        /scsi-hdd    ext2        defaults   1   1
    to /etc/fstab should win.

-- 
                            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