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Title: Kernel Panic by Installation (6.1 - more than 1GB RAM); cannot mount root partition.

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Kernel Panic by Installation (6.1 - more than 1GB RAM); cannot mount root partition.

Symptom:

By the installation from CD or floppy disk you see:

loading initdisk.gz
loading linux
etc.

Next the boot messages appear, then the following message:

Partition Check: sda, sdb
or
Partition Check: hda, hdb
followed by:
Cannot mount root partition - Kernel Panic.

or you receive:

bad pmt in pte_alloc:008000e7
kernel panic:failed to allocate buffer hash table

If you're booting from the diskette you receive the following message:

SCSI: 0 hosts after which you receive a "Kernel Panic" message.

You don't come to the point to choose Kernel modules and such.

Cause:

The system has one (or more) Gigabyte RAM which, during the SuSE Linux Installation is not supported (only 512MB are needed during the installation after which nearly one Gigabyte is supported).

Technically speaking the problem lies in the fact that the file initrd is used during the installation. In the meantime there is a newer SYSLINUX, that should solve the problem.

Solution:

When booting from the diskette use the parameter "mem=512M".

At the SYSLINUX prompt type:

linux mem=512M

In order to boot from the hard drive use the kernel parameter "mem=960M"; at the LILO prompt type

linux mem=960M
or add mem=960M to the append= line in your /etc/lilo.conf...it should look like this...
append="mem=960M"
After this call lilo without any parameters (with this LILO actualizes the boot configuration).

Booting using loadlin is also possible.

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See also:

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Keywords: CANNOT MOUNT ROOT PARTITION, KERNEL, PANIC, INSTALLATION, CANNOT, MOUNT, ROOT, RAM, MEMORY, PTE_ALLOC, 1GB

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Categories: Kernel

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SDB-bk_instpanicnoroot, Copyright SuSE GmbH, Nuremberg, Germany - Version: 28. Jan 1999
SuSE GmbH - Last generated: 05. Nov 1999 17:42:20 by wimer with sdb_gen 1.00.0