[CentOS] C5 i386 DVD boot problems

Phil Schaffner Philip.R.Schaffner at NASA.gov
Mon Oct 22 19:10:05 UTC 2007


On Mon, 2007-10-22 at 13:13 -0400, Scott Ehrlich wrote:
> I tried to boot from two different CentOS 5 DVDs, both pass the checksum 
> test, and both give me the same error on a Dell laptop from either GUI or 
> text install modes:
> 
> invalid compressed format (err=2)
> VFS: Cannot open root device "<NULL>" or unknown-block(253,0)
> Please append a correct "root=" boot option
> Kernel panic...
> 
> 
> I did some google searching and learned other people have had the same 
> problem, but no resolutions were ever posted.
> 
> I'm downloading the CD version and will see if that makes any difference.
> 
> Assuming it won't make a difference, how do I resolve this so I can get 
> CentOS installed on the system?

1. Try the images/boot.iso or images/diskboot.img from CD or USB media
respectively.

2. If you have some flavor of Linux installed, copy the isolinux/vmlinuz
and isolinux/initrd.img to /boot (renamed to *-c5* in GRUB example
below) and create a GRUB or LILO stanza to boot them.
        
        title CentOS5 Installer
                root (cd)
                kernel /boot/vmlinuz-c5 ro ramdisk=8192
                initrd /boot/initrd-c5.img


3. pxeboot

Phil





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