There are more appropriate forums than this for getting help with Linux boot problems. http://www.linuxquestions.org/ is one of many. You might find this thread helpful.

What did you change before you rebooted?

PS: Lilo is most likely not used anymore on your Linux, it has been replaced by GRUB on most distributions

(and no - I will not accept "nothing")

When I get the answer "nothing" my next question is always And what did you change before you changed nothing? :-)

Anyway, common causes for the error message from ree are (1) indeed a wrong (or missing) root= boot parameter, (2) file system or block layer drivers not compiled into the kernel or (3) the drivers are compiled as modules, but no initrd is used.

... which raises my question - I assume his system worked before and now it doesn't. Without knowing what he did (a.k.a. fucked up), all is guessing...

I checked all the connections were tight

I used knoppix live cd and booted the system and got the partitions in that hard disk drive

I also referred some sites, they says that my lilo.conf file need to be changed. some other sites says that, 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

Thenks for your suggestions

There's a cool little tool that I think will help you. Download and install Linux::Bootloader. For example:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Linux::Bootloader;
use Linux::Bootloader::Grub;

my $config_file = '/etc/grub.conf';

my $bootloader = Linux::Bootloader::Grub->new($config_file);
$bootloader->debug(3);
$bootloader->read($config_file);
$bootloader->print_info('default');
[download]

If you are not sure whether you have Grub or Lilo, then, from the command line, you can run the "boottool":

boottool --bootloader-probe

and it'll tell you exactly which bootloader you are using.

This are two differnet problems. The second one is the spurious IRQ7, which is annoying, but harmless. The first and major problem is that the Linux kernel expects its root system on the device with major device number 0x16, minor device number 0x03, i.e. IDE secondary master, partition 3, commonly known as /dev/hdc3. This may be the hardcoded default compiled into the kernel, or it may come from a "root" parameter passed by the boot loader (grub, lilo, syslinux, ...). If the system uses SATA, and you have fiddled with the BIOS Setup or the Linux kernel, the kernel may now see the same partition as /dev/sda3 or /dev/sdb3 due to SATA support. For a system with only one hard disk, the disk is typically /dev/hda or /dev/sda, and the third partition on it is called /dev/hda3 or /dev/sda3. So tell the boot loader (at the boot prompt) to append a "root=/dev/hda3" or a "root=/dev/sda3" to the current boot options. If Linux is really on a second or third disk, use /dev/hdb3, /dev/hdc3, /dev/sdb3, /dev/sdc3 instead.

Alexander

PEBKAC

clearly you are passing some wrong options to kernel boot parameters.
during an attempt to see the kernel configuration file, unknowingly you might have edited that file, and failed to undo changes while closing the file.
you might have tried to use a different kernel version than the normal one and failed to give the 'root' kernel parameter .

BTW, tell us about, what kernel you are using?, what are the contents of the kernel configuration file?(just show us the area where you think the problem resides), Is it a new system that you are setting up from scratch?, or just trying to install an OS on a disk where you have only data; in the idea of using that disk as a separate bootable HDD?

give us more clarity on the environment and setup from where you got this error

sometimes you yourself can find the solution when you try to properly explain the setup and configuration details to others, I think that idea may also work, find a OS installation geek in your workplace and try to explain him what you have done, you/he may find a solution easily

Yes you are right, yesterday I checked the lilo.conf file in the first partition /dev/sda1, there all the information has been modified, So We changed it as,

prompt
timeout=50
default=TB-Main
boot=/dev/sda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
message=/boot/message
lba32



image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=TB-Main
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.28.img
read-only
root=/dev/sda1/ image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=TB-Backup
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.28.img
read-only
root=/dev/sda3/


Previously the 'boot' has been set to 'boot=/dev/hdc'

I also checked the 'fstab' and 'mtab' entries

The problem yet not solved, Now I noticed another error message said that,

Kmod:Failed tp exec /sbin/Modprobe -s -k scsi_hostadapter, error=2

Kmod:Failed tp exec /sbin/Modprobe -s -k block-Major-22, error=2

VFS:Cannot open device "801" or 8:01 please append a correct "root=" boot option kernel panic : VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 8:01 Spurious 8259A interrupt : IRQ7