FC4 - AMD Opteron x86_64 fails - "fix"

[frenzy at frenzy.org]

In short, 'linux' is failing to boot for me on an opteron board. Below is 
more detail on the problem and a workaround.

I have a Tyan S2882 mobo with an adaptec 29320a scsi card. I am getting a 
kernel failure with the x86_64 disk-1. I've tried numerous linux <options 
here> at the boot prompt, all with the same result.

VFS: cannot open root device "<NULL>" or unknown block(3,2)
Please append a correct root=
...

The i386 install works fine, so I could install that then upgrade, but I'd 
like to figure out why this is happening, or if it's happened to anyone 
else.

After searching for a bit, I came upon the following fix as described in 
Bugzilla Bug 159026. 
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=159026

This should be useful for those of you who didn't catch the original 
author's post.

Instead of doing the normal 'linux text' or similar at the boot prompt, 
try the following:

'linux42'  - This will fail.
'linux text'

- Repartition drive, then reboot with the steps listed above. (The first
run through didn't recognize the new partitions I made.)

For some reason this works. Only if you type in a boot message which 
errors first though.

Could someone explain why this works only if you have a previous image 
load failure?

Cheers,

Randy

http://www.frenzy.org
"Sed Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?" -Juvenal