[Linux-disciples] unable to mount root fs

[Brian Cooke]

I tried to upgrade my RedHat system from kernel 2.4.20 to v2.4.23, using 
the sources from kernel.org (not the RedHat-distributed kernel 
versions).  I have successfully upgraded my kernel before, so I used 
make oldconfig to create my .config file, and modified a few options.  
But when I finished compiling and installing, I got a kernel panic error 
message that says:

kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k block-major-3, errno = 2
VFS: Cannot open root device "302" or 03:02
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:02

At that point, I decided to try to recompile the 2.4.20 using the 
original .config I had used to successfully compile the first time.  
Boy, was that a mistake.  I didn't realize it was going to overwrite my 
existing /lib/modules/2.4.20.  And to top it off, I'm still getting the 
above error message in 2.4.20, even though I'm using the exact same 
.config and the exact kernel version that worked for me before!  I don't 
understand how this is possible. What am I missing?  

The relevant entries from my lilo.conf are as follows:

prompt
timeout=50
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
message=/boot/message
linear

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20
        label=2.4.20
        initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.20.img
        read-only
        root=/dev/hda2

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.23
        label=linux_2.4.23
        initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.23.img
        read-only
        root=/dev/hda2

I tried googling around on this error message and found other people 
with this problem, but not much advice on how to fix it.  Any thoughts 
would be greatly appreciated!

Brian