wubi - kernel panic - not syncing VFS...

[opensas]

I installed ubuntu 9.10 using wubi

Verything worked fine, until I got the infamous:

[2.012847] kernel panic - not syncing - VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown block (8,5)

I realized that the disk in which ubuntu was installed was almost full (just a 150 MB free)

so I made space (14,3 GB free out of 67 GB), checked it for error from windows, and defragmented it, but I still get the same error

any advice?

oh, one more thing, I've also notices that this directory

D:\ubuntu\disks\boot\grub

is empty... is that ok??? or maybe I lost grub's configuration...

I don't think that's the case, cause grub seems to be runing fine... who knows...

[nepaliketa]

I also have exactly same problem! anybody out there?

[garikgarik]

I also have exactly same problem! anybody out there?

Same problem.

[garikgarik]

Same problem.

[ALF102]

DOn't have much to say, I got this right after updates

[r0tor]

DOn't have much to say, I got this right after updates

same here... any fixes?

[henz103]

i got it yesterday after updates :S can't boot now

[Schobs]

exactly the same... anyone knows whether its a bios problem?

[r0tor]

bumping this...

booted in windows and the grub folder is empty. Ran chkdsk -r and it did not recover anything

[fduplex]

Same problem here, running 9.10 through Wubi. It just appeared today. I booted Ubuntu for the first time in about a week or so.

I got a popup saying updates were available so I installed them.

However, I also attempted to create a second virtual partition (loopback) in my /host/ubuntu/disks folder. After adding it to /etc/fstab and rebooting I assumed that was the cause of my problems. I have since deleted the new loopback file (and modified /etc/fstab accordingly using a ubuntu install cd in live mode), defragmented my host drive and still I get the same error saying the root fs cannot be mounted.

I did a little digging in /var/lib/dpkg/info to see what packages were changed during the latest update, I noticed udev was updated. Maybe this could have something to do with the problem?

I also noticed my initrd file has a modification time stamp around the time of the update. Maybe the initrd is somehow broken?

Oh, and yes my C:\ubuntu\disks\boot\grub folder is empty as well. I assumed this was normal, can anyone confirm this folder should not be empty? I have a /boot folder with grub's files in it on the root loopback partition (observed using the live cd), so I thought nothing of it.

It can't be a coincidence we're all having the same problem at the same time. I think the latest update must be responsible.