Can't install FC4 on a ABS Mayhem F-15 A40 (Turion 64 MT-32) laptop

[Vladimir G. Ivanovic]

Hi,

I can't get either FC4-i386 or FC4-x86_64 to install on my ABS Mayhem
F-15 A40 Turion 64 (MT-32) laptop. I get

   VFS: Cannot open root device "NULL"or unknown block(3,2)
   Please append a correct "root=" boot option.

not far into the boot process.

Usually this kind of error occurs when the correct disk controller
driver (IDE, SCSI, etc.) for the boot device is not installed. Here
the boot device would be the CDROM drive which is an IDE device.

I know that the CDROM is found because I get a bunch of boot messages
listing what devices are found, and hdc is there (and the boot
sequence does at least start and continue for a little bit, so stuff
is coming off the CDROM).

Neither the FC4-i386 nor the FC4-X86_64 rescue disks work. They
exhibit the same behavior as above. The FC3-i386 rescue disk and
CentOS 4.2 (x86-64) both boot a bit more than the FC4 installs, but
then pretty quickly the screen goes black and nothing happens.

Gnoppix 0.8 (i386) and Knoppix 3.8 (i386) both boot and run fine.

FreeBSD 6.0-RC1 (amd64) boots and goes into the install process.

And of course, the Windoze XP Home Edition that came with the laptop
works just fine.

Is there some boot command line voodoo I can use to get the FC4-x86_64
(or even the FC4-i386) version to boot properly? Is there anything
else I should do or not do to get the x86_64 install to work?

Thanks.

--- Vladimir

-- 
Vladimir G. Ivanovic
Palo Alto, CA 94306
+1 650 678 8014