Kernel panic: No init found on Install CD boot (1.1a)

[pardsbane]

Hello I've been using Gentoo for a long time (since 0.6!) but this is the first I've seen of this error:

When I first boot my computer with the gentoo CD in the drive, it begins the boot process, then just as its about to give me a prompt, I get this error:

RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0
invalid compressed format (err=1)Freeing initrd memory 7139k freed
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
Freeing unused kernel memory: 200k freed
Warning: unable to open an initial console.
Kernel panic: No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel.

Any idea's what this means?

How to I get past this? This is on a new computer, an ASUS A7v266-E motherboard with an Athalon 1900+ chip... What gives?

[sh\fted!]

maybe you have a botched download or bad burn? i just downloaded gentoo 1.1a the other night and it worked fine, on my althlon system.

as a tip, use cdrw's if your burner supports them, that way you don't waste money on images that become obselete in a month or two.

[pardsbane]

Ok, so I hope these messages get logged on Google, because if someone else runs into the same problem, hopefully this will help them.

First off, I burned 2 CD's. They were fine, I checked, and there was nothing wrong with them.

It turns out my new Athalon system doesn't like my 3-4 year old Creative DVD drive. Why that is, I have no idea. I swapped it with a new CD-RW drive, and all of a sudden it works great. So if you run into this problem, one thing to try might be swapping the cd drive for a new one.

-Josh

[JP Money]

I'm having a similar problem on my boot from the CD-ROM. I'm 100% sure that it is not my CD's problem since I've used it to install Gentoo on multiple systems like my laptop.

I'm trying to install on this system:

Athlon "Classic" Slot A 650
Gigabyte 7IX (amd 760) mobo
256 megs
20 gig maxtor hdd
aopen 32x cdrom
etc, etc, etc.

My similar error message:

Code: Select all

Warning: unable to open an initial console. 
EXT2-fs error (device ramdisk(1,0)): ext2_check_page: bad entry in directory #20: rec_len is smaller than minimal - offset=0, inode=0, rec_len=0, name_len=0
Kernel Panic: No Init Found.  Try passing init= option to kernel

I've tried swapping out the memory to be sure the DIMMs aren't flaking out on me and I still get the same problem

This is my web server that has been running Slackware 8 since September with two reboots - both for kernel recompiles and/or security schenanegans - so the hardware is solid. I'm just really wanting to clean house and test out gentoo in a server environment as apposed to a milti-media/desktop environ such as my laptop.

Both Slackware 8.0 and Red Hat 7.3 (IBM) boot and install perfectly on the machine.

Any help/advice/condolences would be greatly appreciated.

[JP Money]

Scratch that last post;

After swapping out the cd-rom for another Gentoo booted flawlessly and is compiling its kernel now.

Crazy old cdrom firmware I guess. Ah well, much thanks for the help.

[PainXcesS]

hi,
I've the same prob and i hope the change of the cd-rom will solve it!

But it's not real solution, is it?
The install of other dists runs straight through...

thx & cya

[D33T]

same issue with 2004.3. i instaled everything and compiled the kernel according to the gentoo andbook. i have never had this problem before and have no idea how to fix it.

i read around and people suggest running mkinitrd, but i have no such command. running 2.4.26-r12...... any ideas? thanks for any help!

[robet]

Did you use genkernel, and if so follow the instructions in the manual?

[Fissile]

I had the very same problem, this seems to be an issue with 2004.3 check my post here http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=256455. The guy in the post gives a solution to solving it. I however just reinstalled everything from scratch and at the end of every process i was checking /sbin to see if init was actually their or not.

Well the above method, might be stupid but it worked for me, the only trouble was the 3 hours in bootstrapping, 5 hours in system and 15 hours or so in xorg and gnome.

Gl...

[D33T]

i re-did the install. i was runnign a stage3 and compiling sources, but i tried to use binaries in the middle. i think that was my problem. i'm all source from here on out - not for performance sake, but for the sake of things working.