Installation: "Kernel panic: VFS: unable to mount root fs on 08:03"

Support knowledgebase (rootfs_0803_install)
Applies to

SuSE Linux: Version 7.1
This article refers to an older version of SuSE Linux. Therefore some of the informations given in this article may be outdated or the article may contain stale links.

Symptom:

The installation fails with the error message:

Kernel panic: VFS: unable to mount root fs on 08:03

or

Kernel panic: VFS: unable to mount root fs on 09:00

Solution:

Give the size of your RAM as a kernel parameter to the boot prompt (the boot: under the blue greeting screen with our address). Say you have 128 MB of RAM. In this example you enter:

linux mem=128M


Keywords: INSTALLATION, KERNEL, PANIC, VFS, UNABLE, TO, MOUNT, ROOT, FS, 08:03, 09:00

SDB-rootfs_0803_install, Copyright SuSE Linux AG, Nürnberg, Germany - Version: 06. Apr 2001
SuSE Linux AG - Last generated: 06. Apr 2001 by hmeyer (sdb_gen 1.40.0)