Kernel panic: unable to mount root fs after building mainline kernel

Question

Similar problem as reported by another user. While booting, the system can't find /dev/sda1 and so a "kernel panic: unable to mount root fs on unknown-block (0,0)" appears on screen.

I'm compiled & built kernel linux-2.6.32.25 on Ubuntu 10.04 running in VirtualBox virtual machine.

ps.: The update-initramfs, update-grub didn't work out for me.

Answer 1

I decided to re-build the kernel using make-dpkg as mentioned in the Ubuntu wiki.

sudo make-kpkg buildpackage --initrd kernel-image kernel-headers

I generated the kernel-image with:

sudo make bzImage

If I recall well, on a PC this will output vimlinuz to: /usr/src/[your_linux_source_tree]/arch/x86/build

The headers I used were downloaded from kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/

Finally I did the update-initramfs, update-grub trick.

Grub screen not showing up? Here's the answer

Answer 2

Try

sudo update-initramfs -u -k all