Unable to mount root fs -- Beige G3 with IDE drive

[Shawn Protsman]

Hi Duane,

I had the same problem when initially loading YDL 3.0 on my old 
PowerCenter Pro.  It was related to the Ultra-wide SCSI card.  I used 
the BenH kernel from http://ppckernel.org/.  This got me into the 
system so I could then start configuring it.

Check out this web page, http://macgix.com/en/linuxppc.html, it may 
offer some assistance.

Also, there was a recent thread you started with the subject "Beige G3 
can't find root after install".  Did any of the advice help?

Shawn

On Monday, Dec 29, 2003, at 19:22 US/Central, Duane Foster wrote:

> Greetings all,
>
> Am working with a stock Beige G3 300Mhz,  196M ram,  UW SCSI 4G 
> MacOS8.1 and 4G IDE drive for YDL. The IDE hard drive has been 
> initialized as an Apple OS drive and then unallocated before the linux 
> install.  This is recognized by Disk Druid and seems correct for 
> installation.
> I was able to run the installation kernel and do a complete install 
> (YDL3.01) without a hitch.
> Back to BootX, turned off Ramdisk, set the kernel to the regular 
> (non-boot) version, and set the root partition to \dev\hda5.
>
> Upon restarting Linux there is a kernel panic:
> VFS: Cannot open root device "hda5" or 00:00
> Please append a correct "root=" boot option
> Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 00:00
>
> I have tried the installation with the hard drive on both ATA busses 
> and the drive is jumpered as Master.
> I can see the initial kernel probe recognize that the hard drive 
> partitions as hda1, hda2 hda3, etc.
> but it cannot find the root filesystem.
>
> I am wondering if the IDE hard drive is faulty? or there is some 
> procedural step I have overlooked?
>
> Any suggestions or ideas would be appreciated
>
> duane foster