Solved: Kernel Panic - Not Synching: Attempted to kill init!

brando56894 · 2008-08-03 02:51:04

i decided to install archlinux along side of windows xp (which i use once in a blue moon) and kubuntu 8.04, the installation went well and i decided not to reinstall grub since it would be too much of a PITA so i just edited my current one to add in the lines to boot archlinux. the boot process went on for about 10 seconds then it gives me this wonderful message:

Kinit: cannot open root device dev(0,0,)
Kinit: init not found!
Kernel Panic - Not Synching: Attempted to kill init!

whats really confusing about this scenario is that my root partition is /dev/sdc2 and i specified that in the installer and made sure of it in fstab (i removed the UUID and replaced it with /dev/sdc2). when it told me to select the packages during the installation there was only one category which were development tools.

ive never really had much luck with these DIY installations, a few years ago i attempted to install gentoo and after about 5 or 6 tries the farthest that i got was right before you compile the xserver.

Last edited by brando56894 (2009-01-28 20:37:49)

ghostHack · 2008-08-03 10:47:25

Please post you Grub entry for Arch.

brando56894 · 2008-08-04 00:57:31

copied directly from what the installer gave me:

title Archlinux
root (hd2,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdc2 quiet
initird /boot/kernel26.img

Last edited by brando56894 (2008-08-04 00:57:48)

trashcat · 2008-08-06 09:02:48

I'm having exactly the same problem after copying my arch linux install from an old hard disk to a new one...any help would be greatly appreciated. I thought it might have been because something didn't get copied correctly, but this leads me to believe that that isn't the issue. I have a separate boot partition, sda1, while my root partition is sda3. the pertinent entry in my menu.lst reads

# (0) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux
root   (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda3 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26.img

...i just added the /boot/ in front of vmlinuz26 and in front of kernel26.img because I couldn't tell where grub was running from, and I have 2 copies of my boot partition...one that is actually /sda1 and another that is /sda1/boot/ (created apparently by default when I installed grub on the disk) because when I followed instructions to reinstall grub I had no idea what was going on really, and, well, grub is a dark magic. the contents of /sda1 and /sda1/boot are identical

Last edited by trashcat (2008-08-06 09:13:06)

tigrmesh · 2008-08-06 17:10:14

trashcat wrote:

root   (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda3 ro
[snip]
the contents of /sda1 and /sda1/boot are identical

Grub starts counting at zero, while disks start the counting at one. So here you are telling grub that the boot files are on the first partition, but to look in the third partition for them. Of course grub is confused.

In terms of the boot files, your / directory should view /dev/sda1 as /boot - so the second directory would be /boot/boot. The way you have the kernel and initrd lines now will cause grub to look in the /boot/boot directory for boot files. Which is fine, but any time you upgrade your kernel it will be installed to the /boot directory, not /boot/boot.

brando56894 · 2008-08-20 01:00:51

i attempted to continue with my install, since i never got an answer to this i reinstalled it and (mostly) everything went fine. when I rebooted from linux mint i noticed that archlinux was no longer in my grub menu for some reason, so i added it back in (from memory, same as my second post in this thread) and got the exact same error even though it worked before.

the partition definitely exists because i mounted it while in mint to make sure that i got the filenames for the initd and the kernel correct.

rooloo · 2008-08-20 01:41:56

brando, post the output of fdisk -l from within ubuntu. It might help us see how the disk is setup. then someone maybe able to tell you if grub looks ok.

Last edited by rooloo (2008-08-20 01:43:47)

brando56894 · 2008-08-24 00:54:01

i found my error right after posting this for the second root arg i missed a forward slash (it was root=dev/sdc2)

tigrmesh · 2008-08-24 01:43:52

Please mark this thread as solved so that others who get this error can find help. Thanks!

obsrv · 2008-09-29 23:03:42

I have the same problem, I tied /dev/sda sdb sdc sdd hda hdb hdc hdd but no go :I

Arch Linux

#1 2008-08-03 02:51:04

Solved: Kernel Panic - Not Synching: Attempted to kill init!

#2 2008-08-03 10:47:25

Re: Solved: Kernel Panic - Not Synching: Attempted to kill init!

#3 2008-08-04 00:57:31

Re: Solved: Kernel Panic - Not Synching: Attempted to kill init!

#4 2008-08-06 09:02:48

Re: Solved: Kernel Panic - Not Synching: Attempted to kill init!

#5 2008-08-06 17:10:14

Re: Solved: Kernel Panic - Not Synching: Attempted to kill init!

#6 2008-08-20 01:00:51

Re: Solved: Kernel Panic - Not Synching: Attempted to kill init!

#7 2008-08-20 01:41:56

Re: Solved: Kernel Panic - Not Synching: Attempted to kill init!

#8 2008-08-24 00:54:01

Re: Solved: Kernel Panic - Not Synching: Attempted to kill init!

#9 2008-08-24 01:43:52

Re: Solved: Kernel Panic - Not Synching: Attempted to kill init!

#10 2008-09-29 23:03:42

Re: Solved: Kernel Panic - Not Synching: Attempted to kill init!

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