Kernel Panic No Boot No Prompt

[iosefl]

Hi,

Have Centos 6 not booting after restart (system was slow), after Centos logo screen comes up with Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!
Init not tainted 2.6.32-279.14.1

I'm getting the information from person in the office as I'm very remote, asked to get a screenshot, this is where I can see the error, I attached the screenshot to this post.

Is this fixable, if yes is this fixable remotely, I can't see a prompt in the screenshot to get to console mode?

Any help greatly appreciated, the whole business system is on hold as the server is down.

Thanks,

Joseph

[TrevorH]

That is a really old and has not been kept up to date. You are running a system from 2012, CentOS 6.3, when the latest is 6.10 and from 2020! That won't help you with the current problem.

I fear your disk has problems or at least it looks like the filesystem that should have been on /dev/sda5 might be toast.

I'd recommend that you boot from alternate boot media - the CentOS install DVD can be used in "rescue" mode - to have a poke around your system from an alternate boot. Look at things like the output from smartctl -a /dev/sda and fdisk -lu /dev/sda and also file -s /dev/sda5. Also look at the output from dmesg to see if you have logs full of i/o errors on the disk.

[iosefl]

Thank you Trevor I'll be driving to the office early tomorrow Friday morning and I'll try all the suggestions you provided.
I'll update here
appreciate your help

[TrevorH]

None of the things I listed there will fix anything, they only tell you more about the possible problem.

[iosefl]

Tried restarting using older kernel, unsuccessful

Downloading 6.10 and 7, I want to try to install 6.10 or 7 to see if it will give me option to 'Upgrade' so I won't loose all the data

If it doesn't work probably I'll need to do a brand new install on a new desktop, reinstall all the applications and copy over the data

If you have any insights to add please do

Thanks

[Whoever]

There is no upgrade path from CentOS 6 to CentOS 7. You have to save your data and reinstall.

[TrevorH]

Did you run the commands I suggested from the rescue boot? What did they say?

[iosefl]

Unfortunately this is an old comp, the DVD doesn't work, managed to change boot sequence and tried the 7 install, had to stop it as there is no upgrade as you mentioned, not able to run the commands.

Changing the hard drive and installing 7, hopefully all works than need to install apps and restore data from backup

[iosefl]

Have a question regarding new install:
- installed CentOS-7-x86_64-Everything-2003.iso, all went well, but when trying to do yum update getting warning no host (no network connection), tried pinging 8.8.8.8 same result, I was connected on my Mac wireless so I'm thinking might be my internet provider modem/router ports are faulty, I'll take it to office and try connecting
- is there a way to check if correct network files are loaded?
- the old O/S was installed when i got it and it had GUI interface with option to open terminal, how do I get CentOs 7 to be gui as right now it prompts me for login without gui?

Thanks

[TrevorH]

If you do not use the network interface to perform the install then all network interfaces are disabled on the next boot. You have to bring them up manually or you hav to edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-$interface and change ONBOOT=no to yes.