[SOLVED] install VL to a SDHC

Hi all,

I'm very new to VL, but have some linux experience under my belt. I wanted to give VL a whirl on my eeepc and install it on a SDHC (I have several linux distros installed that way). The eeepc has two internal SSDs, which are usually sda and sdb; the SDHC is usually mounted as sdc; I have formatted it as 400MB swap; the rest (7GB) as ext3 for /. The installation process recognizes the card and installs to it; installation is smooth, and after restarting, lilo loads fine. However, it fails at mounting the root volume and craps out at this stage. The last lines of the boot message are:

Code:

VFS: Cannot open root device "822" or unknown-block(8,34)
Please append a correct "root"= boot option; here are the available partitions:
0800 3940272 sda driver: sd
0801 3212968 sda1
0802 706860 sda2
0803 8032 sda3
0804 8032 sda4
0810 15761088 sdb driver: sd
0811 15759733 sdb1
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(8,34)

So what seems to be happening: the boot process doesn't appear to "see" sdc at all. Maybe it's missing the drivers? Other linux distros include the usb_storage module in the initramfs or initrd.img, and I assume that's what is needed here (though, when I look at the kernel config, I see CONFIG_USB_STORAGE=y, which should mean that it's compiled into the kernel, right?). The lilo.conf written by the installer does not refer to the initrd:

Code:

# LILO configuration file
# generated by 'liloconfig'
#
# Start LILO global section
append="elevator=deadline"
boot = /dev/sdc
default = linux
compact
prompt
timeout = 100
# Override dangerous defaults that rewrite the partition table:
change-rules
reset
bitmap = /boot/bitmap/boot.bmp
# Normal VGA console
vga = normal
[some commented lines snipped]
# Partition 1: Linux GUI mode
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/sdc2
label = linux
append = " elevator=deadline"
read-only

But even adding the line "initrd = /boot/initrd" doesn't change anything. There's a symbolic link in the /boot directory README.initrd which points to /usr/doc/mkinitrd-1.1.2/README.initrd, which is not present on my system (the entire mkinitrd package seems to be missing). The funny thing is: lilo begins to boot from the card, so the system can obviously use it. What does it take to mount the root filesystem on this card? Can anybody help?

pindar