RE: kernel wont boot

[Ashish Samant <als1140 cs rit edu>]

On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Hamilton Andrew wrote:

> Roger,
>
> What exact error are you getting and what does your grub.conf look like?
> Also what are the contents of your /boot directory?  Some of this
> information might help in tracking down your problem.  You can go back to
> the latest working boot configuration which is a reason I always leave it
> and try again.  That is probably simplest.  If that still causes you
> problems repost and we'll see if we can't help you fix it.
>
> Drew

Hi...

Sorry for intruding, but I was having problem with booting a new kernel
too and I think that was what had got the thread started. It would be
great if somebody could diagnose my problem here. I was running a RH9
distro (2.4.20) and tried to compile a clean version of the kernel
(2.4.20) to customize it. But after following all the steps, I get the
follwoing error when I attempt to boot with it. ( I can still get to my
old kernel, thankfully :) )

......

VFS : mounted root (ext3 filesystem) read-only
Freeing unused kernel memory 104k freed
Warning : unable to open initial console
Kernel panic : No init found
Try passing init= option to kernel

.......

Heres what my lilo.conf looks like :
......

prompt
timeout=50
default=Windows98(hda1)
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
message=/boot/message
lba32

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-ph
      label=2.4.20-ph
      initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.20-ph.img
      read-only
      append="hdc=ide-scsi root=/dev/hda3"

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-8
     label=redhat(hda3)
     initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.20-8.img
     read-only
     append="hdc=ide-scsi root=/dev/hda3"

other=/dev/hda1
    optional

............

I am temtpted to recompile and reinstall the kernel, but would like
to know, what did I do wrong the first tiem around, so that I dont repeat
it again :)

Thanks for your time,

Ashish.