Kernel Panic

[S. Lawton]

I done a baaaaaaad thing !

I was trying to use Mandrake's control center to install a local 
printer, and got a total system freeze. No keyboard or mouse input 
accepted. I left it for 5 min just in case it was a long process, but 
no change. I had to do a "dirty" exit using the system reset button. 

The LiLo screen came up, and windows still works but linux, linux 
no fb, failsafe and booting from floppy all yield the same result. The 
screen says in part: 

VFS: mounted root (ext2 filesystem) read only 
mounted devfs on /dev 
Freeing unused kernel memory: 712 K freed 
Kernel Panic: No init found. Try passing init=option to kernel 

Then is the blinking cursor but no input accepted.

Booting from the install CD, I tried the rescue option and was able 
to get to the following prompt: 

[root at rescue/]# 

I did a few cd and ls -a, because I figured just looking can't hurt, 
and there's lots of directories and files still there. [not that I'm very 
sure what's supposed to be where. I've been working on trying to 
master the KDE]  Is it FUBAR, or is there a way to "rescue" this 
disaster ? 

It's dual boot on one drive, linux root is in hda7, and LiLo is 
apparently down in the MBR because it still works. 

I have no idea where to put init= , or what option[s] to specify. 

Scott

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