I think you might be able to fix this with something like:
disk=/dev/sda bios=0x80
in your lilo.conf global section. Can you bring the system up by booting from CD and selecting "boot installed system"?
Hrm... tried that, no luck. I think it has something to do with a missing /var/lib/modules matching set of modules for the kernel I installed (SMP 2.4 based).
Aha, taht's the hint. It took me until midnight yesterday to install 7.2 on a 486. Problem: the install kernel is called 2.4.4-4GB, however the installed kernel may be 2.4.4 or any of the 2.2 ones. As long as the install system is running, or when you start the rescue system, modules in /lib/modules will never match the running kernel, and therefore will never load. Your specific problem is that your root fs can't be mounted because a required module can't be loaded, I bet. There may be sevaral reasons why the module doesn't load: missing initrd, forgot to run lilo, some module missing in initrd, wrong module version in initrd, etc Solution: 1) Boot something, somehow. The install system is preferable over the rescue system. I found it pretty useless to generate a rescue floppy in my case. 2) Mount the installed systems's disk somewhere and use chroot. mount /dev/... /yourmountpoint chroot /yourmountpoint /bin/sh 3) You MUST put all modules required to boot into INITRD_MODULES="" in /etc/rc.comfig. You MUST also put all modules (first!) in tehre which are required by the modules you need - this screwed me big style. My smc-ultra and the aha1542 now are dependent on isa-pnp, although I know I don't have any plugnpray in my box. Without isa-pnp being insmod'ed first, aha1542 won't load, ergo no root fs, bingo. The dependecies may not be easy to find as you can not run modprobe and regenerate the /lib/modules/version/modules.dep as the running kernel doesn't match. Don't delete this file!! 4) Run mk_initrd and wait; btw SuSE this program is great!! 5) Edit /etc/lilo.conf and make sure it's correct. Dunno about how you make sure it's correct if you're unsure about what has to go on there... sorry, use your linux admin skills. 6) Run lilo with -v -v -v | more, and examine the output *very carefully*. Fix any warnings you may get. Warnings like "bios drive 0x80 not accesible" are deadly! 7) cross your fingers, speak a prayer, and run reboot (actually the first 2 are optional) 8) If result != expected && 1) Volker