[SWLUG] Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(3, 8)

[brent]

Hi Julian,

I think Neil has given some good advice. Running a live CD helped me recently 
on one of my machines which had suffered a hardrive crash. In my case I could 
not even get Mandrake to run let alone install. 

For me, running a Ubuntu Live CD seemed to be the turning point. It will not 
fix your problem but it might help to restore you confidence in your system 
and Linux. 

Ubuntu has been on offer for free recently. I have Ubunto for PC, 64bit PC and 
Mac.The CDs are supplied in both Live and Full formats and I would be happy 
to bring them in for you (or for anyone else) to try. I shall be attending 
the Cardiff meeting on the 10th (by the way, I'm typically late)

I also have something else called Auditor, its sort of a live CD fit-it, 
debug-it crack-it utility. I have not used it, but you are welcome to try it 
and tell me all about it.

regards,
Brent

PS I have been running Mandrake for 2 years now. I am still most definitely a 
newbie. A virus crippled my PC running XP so I changed over to Linux and I 
have not looked back since. My machine is dual boot running XP via lilo. My 
biggest challenge as a newbie is braking away from being dependent on the 
typically out of date packages supplied by distros. Recent triumphs include 
installing Firefox 1.5 from a tar file (tough) then last week compiling my 
first kernel from source (easy) and now I find myself struggling with 'mount' 
- that's Linux for you. DON'T GIVE UP