I keep getting kernel panic when I try to boot to Toorox from my usb HDD. I upgraded to 2009.4 and tried using the old initrd.sdb.gz file that I had used. No luck. One of the messages that I see just before the Kernel Panic is that the version of Gentoo should be r2 not r1.

Thanks

Hi cabalinho,

the messages came up because of your old initrd.gz file. But it should boot
without the need of an initrd file with 04.2009. Have you changed something?

I tried reinstalling and still come up with a kernel panic and the following message

VFS: Cannot open root device "sdb" or unknonwn block (0,0)
Please append a correct "root=" boot option;
here are the available partitions

After the first time this appeared I used blkid and copied over the UUID number into the root=UUID=
and the message reappeared with saying that it couldn't open the UUID.

My menu.lst and grub files with respect to toorox read as follows.

title Toorox
root (hd0,6)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=UUID=23679226-17d1-408f-aa4f-1846eda81fb8 vga=791 nomce noapic lang=us
#initrd /boot/initrd.gz

before it read root=/dev/sdb7

Have a look in your /boot/grub/device.map file
Change root (hd0,6) -> root (hd1,6).
Give the usb driver a few seconds more to register your usb-hdd:
Add rootdelay=10 to the end of the kernel command line
(after lang=us).

I don't see a /boot/grub/device.map file. I have grub.conf and menu.lst, but nothing labeled device.map in /boot/grub. I I have added rootdelay to grub.conf.

The problem was in the rootdelay. I'm now back in Toorox. :-)