Linux Kernel panic VFS Unable to mount root fs and solution
Q. I am using Linux on HP server and I am getting error that read as follows:
Linux Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs
How do I solve this problem?
A. Most modern distributions including Debian uses loadable kernel module for ext3 file system. So to read ext3/ext2 file system kernel must load ext3 kernel module (ext3.ko).
This module is included in an initrd image. If an initrd image is missing or that image does not include suitable kernel modules to access the ext3 filesystem on the partition, an error message (Linux Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs) will be displayed to you.
To solve this problem you need to use mkinitrd script that constructs a directory structure that can serve as an initrd root file system.
The instructions for creating initrd images are here on our site.
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Tags: directory structure, distributions, error message, ext2 file system, filesystem, hp, hp server, images, kernel module, kernel modules, kernel panic vfs unable to mount root fs, ko, Linux, partition, suitable kernel, system kernel, using linux
October 27th, 2006 at 8:13 pm
[...] http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-kernel-panic-vfs-unable-to-mount-root-fs-and-solution/ Not on a *nix box right now but I ran the following in Jed `locate vfs` Which produced a few hundred lines. It’s veeeery low-level stuff but I know that there is no vfs module in the kernel. [...]
March 13th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Most modern distributions including Debian uses loadable kernel module for ext3 file system. So to read ext3/ext2 file system kernel must load ext3 kernel module (ext3.ko).
Would building ext2/ext3 into the kernel suffice? I have been trying to solve the problem by building everything needed for bootup into the kernel. If that is feasible in principle, how would I determine everything that needs to be built-in. This is on an Aspire 5720.