Can't boot 2.6.20, get /dev/root error.

[John Wendel]

Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> clemens at dwf.com wrote:
>> OK, this has got to be something I missed, but I dont see any mention
>> in the Readme nor the /Documentation file that come with 2.6.20
>>
>> The build of 2.6.20 goes without any problems (the only config change I
>> made was to change from 586 -> Pentium4), but when  I try to boot, I get
>> a few lines, and then the message
>>
>>     Unable to access resume device (/dev/sda5)
>>     mount: could not find filesystem '/dev/root'
>>     < 4 more lines with setuproot and switchroot >
>>   
>> and then
>>
>>     Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempting to kill init!
>>
>> So, I dont understand, - /dev/sda5 (mentioned above) is my swap device,
>> and I have no /dev/root, should I? Havent needed it before.
>>
>> What do I need to change/add to get this to boot?
>>   
> Did you create a new initrd for this kernel? It looks like you are
> missing the modules to access the drive. The reference to your swap
> partition is because the system is trying to check if you did a
> suspend to disk. If the swap partition has the flags that show you
> suspended to disk, it will try and resume from disk instead of doing
> a fresh boot. The /dev/root is trying to use partition label to
> mount the root partition. If the kernel could access the hard drive,
> it would find the label.
> 
> If you are going to build your own kernel, you probably should build
> in the drivers to access your hard drive, and your root file system.
> If you are not going to do that, you should get to know how to use
> the mkinitrd command.
> 
> Mikkel


Just do,

make menuconfig (or your favorite version)
make
make modules_install
make install

No need to run mkinitrd, it makes the initrd for you.

Linux Godzilla1 2.6.20 #1 Mon Feb 5 08:55:35 PST 2007 i686 i686 i386 
GNU/Linux

Regards,

John