[NBLUG/talk] Kernel Panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block (0, 0)

[Kyle Rankin]

On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 01:25:12PM -0800, Robert Hayes wrote:
> On Tuesday 27 January 2009 12:29, Kyle Rankin wrote:
> >
> > It really sounds like the DSL disk install did interfere with the grub
> > install on your hard drive. If your SD card is still inserted, remove it,
> > boot off a rescue disk, chroot into your root partition and run a
> > grub-install to reload everything.
> 
> Kyle,
> 
> Thank you so much for the prompt reply. 
> 
> I should have said that I booted with the original install disc in rescue mode 
> and have done the grub-install two or three times to no avail.
> 
> What do you think of this:
> 
> The hard disk installation of Etch has two partitions: hda1 for / and 
> everything else, and hda2 for my home directory.
> 
> I've successfully backed up the / directory to the USB stick. 
> 
> Do you think a clean re-install of the / partition (hda1) and then overwriting 
> with a restore from the backup would fix this? I'm wondering if the issue is 
> related to the MBR rather than the actual data sections of the disc? It does 
> seem that the boot progressed quite far before panic for it to be the MBR.
> 
> Even if I had to reinstall all my apps to a clean install, I would have the 
> hidden directories and settings in my home directory to guide me in what I 
> need.
> 
> Or does the restore from backup sound like a waste of time?
> 
> Thanks again,
> 
> Robert
> 

I wouldn't go that far just yet. It might help if I knew exactly how far
along the boot process went before it died. Ie. did the kernel and initrd
load? Did it start booting after that?

-- 
Kyle Rankin
NBLUG President
The North Bay Linux Users' Group
http://nblug.org
IRC: greenfly at irc.freenode.net #nblug 
kyle at nblug.org