Subj : Re: FC3 - kernel panic.. please help !!
To   : comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.os.linux
From : aq
Date : Tue Dec 28 2004 02:45 pm

shahsachin@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi,
<snip>
> exec of init (/sbin/init) failed!!!: 2
> umount /initrd/dev failed: 2
> Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

i think this just means that either it couldn't find init or init is 
damaged somehow, in which case the easiest fix may be booting with the 
FC3 cd and reinstalling the SysVinit package should do the trick (i run 
FC2 but i'm assuming the package name hasn't changed) to fix things.

> I tried to boot to my previous version of kernel that is 2.6.9-1.667,
> and got the same problem. My Win XP boot works fine. I tried to lookup
> the issue by googling around but didn't get any solid solution for this
> problem. I didn't have any hardware changes. Just installed a few
> updates from fedora-updates using up2date and one of the packages did
> not install correctly. I tried "linux rescue" from the dvd image of FC3
> which mounts my existing filesystem on /mnt/sysimage, but I am not able
> to run fsck from there, maybe not doing it correctly.

As you say, it is preferable to run an fsck on the filesystems to make 
sure any other damage is caught and corrected, does FC3 ask you on 
rescue if you want to mount the existing installation?
If it does, tell it not to. When you get to the bash prompt, just
e2fsck -p /dev/whatever on each of your partitions. Once that's complete 
mount the system (/mnt/sysimage) and dig out the cd with the required 
SysVinit package, then perform an rpm --root /mnt/sysimage -i 
SysVinit.blah.blah.rpm

I'd suggest to you that you check out synaptic, you can get it from 
www.freshrpms.net I use it on my FC2 box and it's a pretty good front 
end to apt. When you get your system back up and running you can use it 
to check whether packages may be broken (it'll tell you.)

> Has anyone come across similar problem and/or has a solution for it? I
> will appreciate your help.
> 
> Thank you,
> Sachin
> 

Hope this is of any help.

Kind Regards.

.