[techtalk] Error installing Red Hat Linux 7.0

[Conor Daly]

On Wed, Mar 07, 2001 at 07:08:42PM +1100 or so it is rumoured hereabouts, 
jenn at simegen.com thought:
> Shannon Botz wrote:
> 
> > I am having problems installing Red Hat Linux on a computer.  I am using a
> > P3 550mhz with 64meg of RAM.  After booting with the floppy and entering any
> > install type (text, expert) I get the following error before the GUI
> > install.   crc errorVFS: Cannot open root device 08:41
> > Kernel panic: VFS: unable to mount root fs on 08:41.  
> >    No matter what HD or Bios set-up I attempt to use, I get this error.
> > Every once in a while I get into the install GUI but it locks up after the
> > partition prompt. 
> 
> 
> I've not seen this sort of error, but my suspicions would be that 
> either the boot floppy is fscked (try another boot floppy, or a boot
> CD). Or that there's something fscked in the hardware.
> 
> My _suspicion_ would be hard drive, since it's trying to mount 
> a root filesystem.
I'd be inclined to doubt that.  I'm thinking that the root device for a
linux *install* process is actually a ramdisk rather than a physical
device.  OTOH, a quick grep on ls -l /dev reveals

brw-rw----    1 root     disk       8,  41 Aug 24  2000 /dev/sdc9

device 08:41 appears (on my system AMD K6-2 350) to be the 9th partition
on the 3rd scsi disk on my scsi-less system!??

-- 
Conor Daly <conor.daly at oceanfree.net>

Domestic Sysadmin :-)
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