'kernel Panic' Error When Trying To Install Opensuse 10.2

I am trying to install a copy of OpenSuse 10.2 onto my PC as I need to use it to complete some assignments for my University course. At present, I have Windows XP SP2 installed on my C drive and I wish to keep this. I have another hard drive, D, containing all my music and general downloads, so I'd rather not install an operating system on this drive.

I have downloaded the DVD ISO image and burned that off, (I downloaded the openSUSE-10.2-GM-DVD-i386.iso one - I think this is correct as I think I have a Pentium 4 3.06 Ghz processor, please tell me if I need a different version!) and when I boot to this DVD I see the welcome page but each of the different install methods I try from here all fail. Do I need to create a partition on my C drive before I can proceed with installing OpenSuse? Or will the installation allow me install on a new partition once I can get in to it?

The error I get shown when I attempt the regular installation says something like this:

Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount foot fs on unknown-block (8,5)

All other install methods, where some things are disabled, simply cause my screen to go black and then nothing happens. Can somebody please tell me how I can get around this error message and install OpenSuse, bearing in mind that I still wish to keep Windows XP as my main operating system on my C drive.

Thankyou very much for any help!

Let me start right out by saying I don't know what is causing your particular problem.

However, you do need to have some space on disk for OpenSUSE to install in. This generally means shrinking your current Windows partitions in order for you to have some space for the new installation. I've never tried to install without having extra disk space available and so don't know if the OpenSUSE installer can properly handle this. Perhaps someone else who has tried it can give you a better answer.

You should be able to use Windows XP to shrink your partitions, although it would be a good idea to defragment first. How much space you want to allocate to your OpenSUSE install will depend, in part, upon what you want to do with it and how much space you have available on your disk drives.

My OpenSUSE installs use about 5-6 GB in the / partition for a fairly full install. The /home partition takes about 6-7 MB per user for a minimum (but my current home directory is 88GB so it just depends what you want to do with it.)

How did you burned iso that you downloaded?

How did you burned iso that you downloaded?
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I just opened the DVD ISO image in Nero 6 and burned this onto a blank DVD.

Thanks for that though ramlight, I'll try and partition off some space then and let you know if I still get the error.

Ok I think I may have done something else wrong! I used partition magic to create an 8Gb partition on the end of my C drive, and this volume is now my L drive. I think I did the right thing, I made this a 'Primary Partition' rather than a logical drive or extended partition. I don't fully understand the difference between these so I hope I chose the right one. If not, could somebody explain what kind of partition I need to do?

Now when rebooting with the OpenSuse DVD I get past the 'kernel panic' error into the start of the installation process, but not much further! Firstly, I cannot actually enter the fully graphical installation process. I know this because I get this message after I click "Installation" from the initial Opensuse boot screen:

"Your computer does not fulfill all requirements for a graphical installation. There is less than 96 MB memory or the X server could not be started"

I'm not sure about the 'X server' part, but I do know that memory should not be a problem! I assume that the setup does not notice the unused L drive partition that I have just created, but I do not know why this is the case. The message also goes on to say that only a text based version will be used as a fallback because there is less than 96 MB memory available. I don't know if this error is too critical though, for all I know it may simply be referring to the installation process and not the actual operating system being installed.

After entering the text based installation however, I only get a couple of screens past selecting my language and agreeing to the terms before I reach another error, only this one causes the whole setup to stop! The error that I receive is as follows:

Error occured while creating the catalog.
cd:///?devices=/dev/hdc,/dev/hdd
Source metadata is invalid:
cd:///?devices=/dev/hdc,/dev/hdd/suse/se

And this is where I'm stuck! I do hope somebody can give me a clue how to resolve this. Is there another method to install OpenSuse? Is there something wrong with the way I made the partition?

Thank you for any help with this.

Can somebody please help me with this, I am still not able to get it working!

Ok I think I may have done something else wrong! I used partition magic to create an 8Gb partition on the end of my C drive, and this volume is now my L drive. I think I did the right thing, I made this a 'Primary Partition' rather than a logical drive or extended partition. I don't fully understand the difference between these so I hope I chose the right one. If not, could somebody explain what kind of partition I need to do?

Now when rebooting with the OpenSuse DVD I get past the 'kernel panic' error into the start of the installation process, but not much further! Firstly, I cannot actually enter the fully graphical installation process. I know this because I get this message after I click "Installation" from the initial Opensuse boot screen:

"Your computer does not fulfill all requirements for a graphical installation. There is less than 96 MB memory or the X server could not be started"

I'm not sure about the 'X server' part, but I do know that memory should not be a problem! I assume that the setup does not notice the unused L drive partition that I have just created, but I do not know why this is the case. The message also goes on to say that only a text based version will be used as a fallback because there is less than 96 MB memory available. I don't know if this error is too critical though, for all I know it may simply be referring to the installation process and not the actual operating system being installed.

After entering the text based installation however, I only get a couple of screens past selecting my language and agreeing to the terms before I reach another error, only this one causes the whole setup to stop! The error that I receive is as follows:

Error occured while creating the catalog.
cd:///?devices=/dev/hdc,/dev/hdd
Source metadata is invalid:
cd:///?devices=/dev/hdc,/dev/hdd/suse/se

And this is where I'm stuck! I do hope somebody can give me a clue how to resolve this. Is there another method to install OpenSuse? Is there something wrong with the way I made the partition?

Thank you for any help with this.
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im getting a similar problem right now with installing 10.2, it talking about it cant procced with a graphical install and xwindow system cannot start. after compleating the install though, i get to the command line not suse gui like i would like to be. (i skipped the network setup because it hung when trying to configure that)