Kernel Panic: no init option found.

[technofaerie]

Hello,
I'm a new Linux user; I recieved a secondhand Windows/Mandrake computer from a friend. I connected my old hard drive to the partitioned Win/Lin one, and now I can't boot up in Linux.
All it tells me is "Kernel panic: no init option found. Try passing init= option to kernel."

I've tried looking at other help files, but I don't understand a lot of the terminology. If you could tell me as basically as possible, that would be wonderful. I'm still trying to find my way around.

Thanks in advance!

[genesus]

how did you connect your other hard drive? same ide channel? did you make it the master?

[technofaerie]

yes, I made it the master. But I also have a prompt that pops up every time I start my machine (powered by mandrake) that allows me to pick either Linux, windows failsafe, windows or boot off floppy each time, so would it be a problem?

[technofaerie]

I believe it was the same IDE channel, but even when I disconnected the second hard drive, it won't let me access Linux again.

[apoorv_khurasia]

I believe it was the same IDE channel, but even when I disconnected the second hard drive, it won't let me access Linux again.

Check again. Just to make sure that this is the case. I faced the same problem and when I changed my channel it worked. The drive to be booted has to be your primary IDE drive. or else check that in your boot device priority.

[technofaerie]

Thanks apooriv,

I tested that, and I found that when the second hard drive is unplugged, it will load Linux (I also found that I have Mandrake v. 9.1), but it won't initalize my KDE enviroment, and gives me something similar to what you would get when you open the shell console: [myusername@localhost ~]$

I'm not sure what to to from there to get my KDE back. Any advice?

Thank you both for your help!