Kernel panic when booting the machine prefaced with "RAMDISK: Couldn't find valid RAM disk image starting at 0."

Issue

• When booting the machine I receive a kernel panic prefaced by this message:

 RAMDISK: Couldn't find valid RAM disk image starting at 0.
 VFS: Cannot open root device "mapper/vg00-lv_root" or unknown-block(0,0)
 Please append a correct "root=" boot option; here are the available partitions:
 Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)

• OR I receive a blank screen with a cursor on it, Red Hat Enterprise Linux never starts.