Problem with old compaq

[Alton T Crossley IV <Alton Crossley helenair com>]

I am having trouble installing 7.1 or 7.3 on an old compaq.
It doesn't detect the 424MB of memory installed so when booting form a
floppy I use: "text linux mem=424M" I get the error:

"VFS: Cannot open root device "" or 08:41
Please append a correct "root= " boot option
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 08:41"

I have no idea... I assume that the command I give it is incorrect in some
way.  I have also tried exact map, and get "Unable to handle kernel paging
request...Kernel panic: Attempted to kill the idle task!"

grrr... help*

-Alton Crossley