Cannot open root device

Forum: HD Install
Topic: Cannot open root device
started by: JonMikelV

Posted by JonMikelV on Aug. 22 2005,06:45

I have an old IBM laptop (came w/W95) that won't boot to CD (too old). I put the HDD in another machine as hdb & installed DSL that way.

When I try to boot from the drive back in the laptop things seem to be going well until it reports:
kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k ide-scsi, errno = 2
kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k ide-cd, errno = 2
VFS: Cannot open root device "341" or 03:41
Please appen correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:41

I'm assuming the kmod errors just mean they didn't find some hardware they expected (now that I look I see some scsi_hostadapter ones earlier on) but I have no idea what device 341 is or what "root=" option I should be using (or how to append it).

Any ideas would be appreciated - thanks!

Jon-Mikel

Posted by adssse on Aug. 22 2005,13:55

Not sure I can really help. I believe VFS stand for Virtual File System. I googled some of the lines of your error messages and it seems that many others have gotten these error messages, so you may want to google and read through those. Did you install from a freshly formatted drive? If your lappy has a floppy drive you could also leave the drive in a use a boot floppy to boot and than use the cd in that machine to install, maybe that will make a difference. Sorry I cant be of more help.

Posted by JonMikelV on Aug. 23 2005,18:54

Thanks for the reply. The laptop doesn't have a floppy & is too old to boot from CD - that's why I'm trying it this way. My guess is that DSL doesn't like being installed to hdb on the "installer machine" and then being run from hda on the primary machine.

I'm gonna try again but with the laptop drive as hda on the installer machine.