i am runnig win xp pro and wanted to use linux on drive d:

so i installed it on my toshiba satellite laptop and when it finished installing it rebooted and i got this message

VFS:cannot open root device "sda4" or unknown block (0,0)
Please append a correct "root" boot option
Kernel panic:VFS:Unable to mount root fs on unknown block (0,0)

and linux just will not start!!so what can i do??

devil

boot with a rescue disk and recompile the kernel with a valid FS

e.g you have ext3 you need to add the Ext3 support into the kernel

hope this helps you

well i can i do that??well i can put a rescue disc in...np...but how do i replace a kernel.... i am a real big newbie in linux

Look for some help on suse website .

i just deinstalled it cause when i booted my computer i got a message 'GRUB' and nothing happened!!!couldn´t start XP or Linux...not even in safe mode!!that sucks!!really want to try Linux....but every time i do...something always goes wrong!!is it cause i want to run it on my laptop??

sounds like you don´t have hoer filesystem kompiled in your kernel!
you shoud be able to boot from a rescue disk or knoppix. chroot to your "/" and first run "grub-install" to make grub write into the mbr. (you are able to boot win/linux now)
if you have installed your kernel sources (i think suse installer does this for you. otherwise install kernel-sources-2.6.8, kernel-headers-2.6.8 or watever) you can cd to /usr/src/kernel-source-*.*.* and run "make menuconfig".

in the file system section u have to compile in all ext2/3 and riser options (with a "*") . under "partition types" you should not have "advanced partition selection" enabled.

save the settings and kompile your kernel. add a entry to grubs menu.ls (maybe you have to make a initrd for your kernel, ask google how to do.). reboot and start with the new kernel. the panik should be away.

hope thats helpfull (and you are able to decript my english )

sda4? You've an SCSI hard disk on your laptop?

Yah; the "sda4" is highly suspect. The nomenclature for Linux drives is as follows:
/dev/[1]d[2][3]
where
[1] = type of disk, usually "s" or "h", where the s is for SCSI and the h is for "hard disk" (meaning IDE, or even MFM and RLL, but those days are long over)
[2] = which disk (starting from a). For example, the third SCSI disk in your chain would be "sdc"; the master drive in your second IDE chain (even if it were the only IDE drive in your box) would be "hdc"
[3] = which partition (starting from 1). So, your first four (the primary) partitions would be 1-4, and your extended would be 5-8.

So, to hear that your computer's trying to access sda4 means that it's trying to access the fourth partition of your primary SCSI disk. Since it's a notebook, it's -real- unlikely that it's SCSI. Which means that something went FUBAR during install. I'd try installing again -- maybe use Knoppix (www.knoppix.com) with their knx2hd command; regardless, your XP is still there, it just needs to be "found" by the bootloader (grub and LILO are the two bootloaders commonly used these days with Linux).

Good luck!

I had the GRUB problem too. Tried to reinstall it with LILO that didn't worked then formatted complete partition with no specification of any kind and then i did the install again and formatted it with the SuSE HD formatter and then it worked fine.

Sounds to me like your linux partition is not in a bootable part of the disk. That used to be the first 1024 cyl of the drive but I think now it's something like the first 10gig of the drive (I am pretty sure I read that somewhere so it might not be acurate, I don't dual boot anymore, it's linux or nothing except at work, I have one comp of xp and one of linux). I would try to use partition magic or something to create a /boot partition at the front of the drive.

As far as the grub issue, if you just want to get back to windows you should be able to boot from a bootable floppy and run fdisk on /mbr and that will wipe out the grub installation (assuming you installed it in the master boot record (not sure if this will work for xp but I have used it plenty with windows 98).

Hope some of this helps.

dAggressor

hahaha, dat klinkt best grappig

besides that, i cant help u much, sorry.