Debian on USB HDD GRUB problem

[Cuperdon]

After spending half a day figuring out how to have fedora core boot successfully on my external harddrive, I failed
I have followed the steps from this thread: http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/red...ore-6-a-2.html

But I still receive Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition, when I try to boot Fedora Core

my device.map is as follows:

(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd1) /dev/hda
(hd0) /dev/sda

And my grub.conf has been emulated to be almost the same as the thread I have referred to:

default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title Fedora Core
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6 ro root=/dev/sda6 rhgb quiet
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6.img

title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
chainloader +1

This is my harddrive outline
sda2 Extended Partition
sda5 ntfs storage partition
sda6 /boot
sda7 / (in Linux LVM type)

Please determine the problem, thank you

[devils casper]

Hi Cuperdon,

Welcome to the LinuxForums.

edit grub.conf file

splashimage=(hd0,5)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

root (hd0,5)

in case it doesn't work, post the output of 'fdisk -l' command here.

[Cuperdon]

I got the splash screen, but now I have a kernel panic

Uncompressing Linux... Ok, booting he kernel.
PCI: Cannot allocate resouce region 0 of device 0000:00:00.0
Red Hat nash version 5.1.19 starting
usb 1-1: device not accepting address 2, error -71
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
__Reading all physical volumes. This may take a while...
__Found volume group "VolGroup00" using metadata type lvm2
__2 logical volume(s) in volume group "VolGroup00" now active
setuproot: moving /dev failed: No such file or directory
setuproot: error mounting proc: No such file or directory
setuproot: error mounting /sys: No such file or directory
ERROR opening /dev/console: No such file or directory
Trying to use fd 0 instead.
WARNING: can't access (null)
exec of init ((null)) failed!!!: Bad address
Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

fdisk -l output:

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350013 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda2 4 30401 244171935 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 3181 30401 218652649 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6 * 4 16 104359+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 17 3180 25414798+ 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

[devils casper]

does Windows boot up on selecting its title in GRUB Menu?

[Cuperdon]

yes it does

[devils casper]

post the contents of /etc/fstab file.

[Cuperdon]

/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 /______ ext3__ defaults__1 1
LABEL=/boot_________/boot_______ ext3__defaults__1 2
devpts___________ /dev/pts________ devpts__gid=5,mode=620__0 0
tmpfs___________ /dev/shm_________ tmpfs__defaults _____ 0 0
proc_____________ /proc_________ proc___ defaults_____ 0 0
sysfs___________ /sys ________ sysfs__ defaults_______ 0 0
/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01 swap_____ swap___ defaults_______ 0 0

please assume that they are aligned

[devils casper]

initrd image is not working properly. is it possible for you to re-install Fedora?
i suggest you to create Partitions manually. LVM creates a lot of problems. create two ext3 partitions. 102 MB for /boot and rest of space for / (root). its lot easier to resize or debug initrd image in ext3 filesystem.
in case, its not possible for you to re-install, i have to check this in my test machine.
do let me know your decision.

[Cuperdon]

I am going to reinstall Fedora
but I need to know if I should install normally or with 'linux expert'?

UPDATE: reinstalling manually (with linux expert) isn't helping me. When I get to linux rescue in attempting to create grub.conf. This showed up, identical to the first time I installed manually without expert

When I type: chroot /mnt/sysimage
the output gives: chroot: cannot run command '/bin/sh': No such file or directory

[devils casper]

did you create partitions manually? in which filesystem did you format partitions?