Getting:
"CPI: BIOS age (1999) fails cutoff (2000), acpi=force is required to enable ACPI
Kernael panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)

This is an old machine, the startup stuff is all hidden so I'm not even sure what the mobo is without cracking the case (fairly big job, its in a luggable case).

Any help?

Thanks

-Curt

Okay, its a Tyan Thunderbolt, Tyan claims the bios version on it is from 2001...
In the boot options I included acpi=force but that just got me an added"CPI: Unable to load the System Description Tables"

DOH!
They're PII processors....
I got hing up on the BIOS age thing instead of the kernel panic. I'm downloading 6.5 now.

I have PII processors and get that error message on boot all the time. I just ignore the error message, and M7 boots fine and runs fine. I tried to force it, as you have done with the same results.

You should only need to run 6.5 if you have k5/k6 processors, but if you get a kernel panic there may be something else going on.

In fact I get the same problem on 6.5 or rather half of the problem:
Kernael panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)
I'll make another post.