The strangest part of the problem is that the machine started to boot again
without any changes. I went into recovery mode, poked around to check that
grub was configured correctly, ran shutdown -h now, and then it was able to
boot normally. It rebooted correctly several times after that, so I stopped
worrying about it.

Thanks for your help!
On Oct 28, 2013 3:25 PM, "ChasM Marshall" <chasm750@hotmail.com> wrote:

> > kernel panic not syncing: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown
> -block(0,0)
>
> Usually this is a GRUB issue:
> One of these;
> /boot/grub/menu.lst   (used first)
> /boot/grub/grub.conf  (used if menu.lst is missing),
> still specifies the wrong initrd, or the wrong kernel.
>
> The kernel upgrade can change out the softlink pointer:
> /boot/vmlinuz
> but this may no longer match the initrd softlink pointer:
> /boot/initrd
>
> For example, kernels in my /boot/ directory are named:
>
> /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.33-puppy
> /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.37.1-1.2-desktop
> /boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-12-generic
> /boot/vmlinuz-3.1.0-1.2-default
> /boot/vmlinuz-3.3.4-5.fc17.i686
>
> and I must name them explicitly in /boot/grub/menu.lst
> to be in sync with their matching initrd files:
>
> /boot/initramfs-3.3.4-5.fc17.i686.img
> /boot/initramfs-genkernel-x86-2.6.39-sabayon
> /boot/initrd-2.6.33-puppy
> /boot/initrd-2.6.37.1-1.2-desktop
> /boot/initrd-3.1.0-1.2-default
> /boot/initrd.img-3.0.0-12-generic
>
> But if not GRUB:
> Also, I've seen similar errors, just like yours, when the /etc/fstab
> no longer supports specific mount options for the upgraded kernel.
>
> BTW, I found that new kernels no longer tolerate the way I mount / (root).
> For me, /boot/ is a seperate partition, and it must be fsck(ed) first
> and not in parallel to other partition checks (even / root!).
>
>   (-:  Chas.M.  :-)
>
> -------------------------------
> Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2013 16:49:51 -0700
> Subject: Debian Boot Problem
> From: mark@phillipsmarketing.biz
> To: plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org
>
> I ran apt-get update and apt-get upgrade this morning on an old server
> (Debian Squeeze) and the system won't boot now. I get the error
>
> kernel panic not syncing: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown
> -block(0,0)
>
>
> One of the updates was to kernel 2.6.32-5-686. I can boot in to safe mode
> with this kernel, and the upgrade wiped out the older version of the kernel.
>
> I have googled for possible solutions, but nothing helpful is popping up.
> I am also running grub, and not grub2, but that is OK for this kernel
> according to debian.org.
>
>
> Any suggestions on how to proceed?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Mark
>
>
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