[Clfs-support] Kernel unable to mount root fs

[Andreas Hofer]

Good morning folks,

I finally managed to install CLFS (embedded version, following the book)
onto a USB (flash) disk and also configured GRUB. But, the boot process
stops when the kernel tries to mount the root filesystem. The kernel
messages are:

============================================================
VFS: Cannot open root device "sda1" or unknown-block(0,0)
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on
unknown-block(0,0)
============================================================

The relevant entry in GRUB's menu.lst is:
kernel /boot/clfskernel-2.6.20.1-DMP root=/dev/sda1

The root partition is of type ext2, so I included e2fs_stage1_5 in
/boot/grub.

Since the disk is a USB flash device, the kernel has following feature
compiled in:

Device drivers / USB support :
	Support for Host-side USB
	USB device filesystem
	EHCI HCD (USB 2.0) support
	OHCI HCD support
	USB mass storage support
Device drivers / SCSI device support :
	SCSI device support
	SCSI disk support
File systems:
	Second extended fs support
	Ext3 journaling file system support

I thought I had everything "on board" to mount the root fs.

Any idea somebody?

Andreas