root=/dev/sda1 fails but root=0x0801 works...

["John Z. Bohach" <jzb@aexorsyst.com>]

This is probably a question with an obvious answer, but I haven't found it
elsewhere, so I hope its okay if I ask here...

As the subject says, if I have my kernel command line with
'...root=/dev/sda1...' then I get

VFS: Cannot open root device "sda1" or unknown-block(0,0)

however, everything else being the same, if I have
'...root=0x0801...', then it works fine.  Note that 

SCSI device sda: 2001888 512-byte hdwr sectors (1025 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
 sda: sda1
Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0

preceeds this in the console both for the failed case and the succeeding case
(as I already have the rootdelay=10 param. on the command line as well).

I've narrowed this down to another CONFIG_* option, but I can't find which
one in tractable time...

Does anybody know which CONFIG_* option might contribute to text string
root=/dev/sda1 failing while its root=0x0801 cousin works?  I've already tried the
CONFIG_KALLSYMS one, but no luck.  Would this possibly have to do with
CONFIG_NLS=m (et al),  as I have those as modules, and if so, is this intentional?

Thanks,
John


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