Kernel panic on boot, exec of init (/sbin/init) failed: No such file or directory

Solution Verified - Updated -

Issue

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.3 server cannot boot and shows the following error message:
exec of init (/sbin/init) failed: No such file or directory
Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init
  • Boot the server using the install ISO and running linux rescue mode
  • chroot /mnt/sysimage and get the following error messages:
chroot: cannot run command `/bin/sh`: no such file or directory

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5

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