I have Compaq Presario system with P4 processor and 512 MB RAM. My hard disk is 40GB and has two partitions C: and D:. The C drive is 36GB (NTFS formatted) whereas D drive is 4GB (FAT32) .I have Windows XP installed in the primary partition. Been fed up with the windows and looking for a new operating system I tried to install Mandrake 8.1 version of Linux which can be downloaded from ftp.rutgers.edu for free. I thought I would partition my C: drive (NTFS formatted) such that I can allocate around 6GB for my Linux Box. I booted from my Mandrake 8.1 CD for installation…. everything was going well and before the installation actually begins, I get the following error:
VFS:cannot open root device "ram3" or 01:03
Please appen a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic:VFS:unable to mount root fs on 01:03
I searched over the internet and found a website http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/history/9631 which discussed the same problem. The solution given there suggested to “disable the external cache “ in the BIOS settings. But my BIOS settings did not had any option for changing the external cache settings and I was scared that my system may get screwed up if I played around with any other settings to get Mandrake installation going ….as said in that webpage. Rather I downloaded RedHat 7.2 from ftp.rutgers.edu and booted from CD and Thank God the installation began and when it came to disk partitioning I land in to problems again. As mentioned earlier I thought of partitioning my C drive to provide space for Linux Box but both the Disk Drude and Fdisk Utility failed to create partition.
The information regarding Disk Drude and Fdisk can be had from https://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-7.1-Manual/install-guide/
.Since “Partition Magic “ was not available free I could not partition my C:
drive and “Ranish Partition Manager” did not work with NTFS partitions. I
downloaded “parted.img” from www.gnu.org” as
I learned over the internet that it may
help in partitioning but that too did not work at all, it couldn’t
resize my C: instead kept on saying could not mount the partition(I don’t remember the message exactly). Fed up
with all this the only option left out was to empty my D drive and install
RedHat in D drive. Bingo! this time installation was successful. I have to boot
from the floppy every time but that’s ok. Atleast I have my Linux Box installed and could work with it. For more
information regarding disk partitioning go to
http://oakroadsystems.com/tech/hd-partn.htm
, http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/file/struct_MBR.htm
Also for more information on NTFS file system visit http://www.microsoft.com/msj/1198/ntfs/ntfstop.htm . For more information on Linux installation visit http://www.linuxdoc.org/LDP/gs/gs.html.
I had problem with connecting to internet from my cable modem….The problem was with DNS Server I had to edit /etc/resolv.conf and I added the following lines “nameserver (IP_address_of_DNS_Server `` “and “search rr.com” as road runner is my ASP ……….. you can visit http://home.nyc.rr.com/computertaijutsu/linfaq.html#installed or http://www.linuxheadquarters.com/howto/networking/netcfg_ethernet.shtml for more information regarding troubleshooting of cable modems. Also for more help I advice you to join yahoogroups for Linux Newbies at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/linux/ .I Wish you Good Luck and All the Best in your installation.I also commend Ajay Gautam for his help at every moment in my successful installation. He can be contacted at [email protected] . If you have any questions please contact me at [email protected], I would be more than willing to help you.