[SWLUG] Kernel Panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 16:08

[Carter N.]

>Also I can't  even see the partition 
>table by doing a fdisk -l /dev/hdb  ??   should I be able to ??

I'd have thought so -- even when I've had a badly damaged table, I was still
able to manipulate it with fdisk (MS and Linux editions), Norton, and
Partition Magic. (In one case a faulty power supply damaged all my IDE
drives, in other cases, Partition Magic and Mandrake's installation
disagreed about partition overlaps.)

>do the master and slave on a single IDE (80 pin) cable need to be in a
>certain order ? 
>the master is on the end and the slave is in the middle at the moment.

On the old cables, position was irrelevant, except if the hard disk drives'
jumpers were configured for cable-select. But on the new (UDMA-33, I think)
IDE cables, the position is important whether or not the jumpers are set for
cable-select: master and system are at the end, slave is in the middle.

Hope this is useful.

Neil
--------------------------------------------
Neil Carter            Psychology Department
IT Technician    University of Wales Swansea
                       Wales, United Kingdom

http://psy.swansea.ac.uk/staff/Carter/