I've been fiddling non-stop since i downloaded 2009.08 CORE yesterday, but after a hard crash (couldn't even get to a terminal), i decided to start over. Only to find the same error hunting me again after just a few hours of installing and configuring.

What happens is: I start the computer, select Archlinux in grub, all that awesomely linux-like text flickers down the screen, and suddently, I'm prompted with a "ramfs$ " prompt. From there, i have the options of typing 'reboot' (which brings me to the exact same spot again), and 'exit', which continues for about 10 lines, then freezing completely. Except for the caps lock and scroll lock keys, that flashes about 1,5 times/second, everything is frozen. Not even the battery meter changes, when i plug out the power.

Okay, enough of the story, down to some facts.


CPU: Mobile DualCore Intel Core 2 Duo T9300, 2500 MHz (12.5 x 200)
Motherboard: MSI MegaBook GX700/GX705 (MS-1719)
Chipset: Intel Crestline-PM PM965
2x Transcend JM800QSU-2G 2 GB DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM (5-5-5-16 @ 400 MHz) (4-4-4-11 @ 266 MHz) (3-3-3-8 @ 200
BIOS Type: AMI (03/11/08)
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT (512 MB)
Sound: Realtek ALC888/1200 @ Intel 82801HBM ICH8M - High Definition Audio Controller
Wireless: Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN
Ethernet: Realtek RTL8168B/8111B Family PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC (NDIS 6.20)

It is, as you may have figured from the hardware, a laptop from MyBook (Which is not much more than a msi-reseller).

I downloaded the cd, burned it to a dvd, booted from it, and followed the Beginners guide in danish (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dansk_Begynderguide). At some places, i had to guess for which option to pick, since the guide said something else would happen, but i assume that it is because i used the danish (and therefore perhaps a little outdated) version.

I formatted to a 100mb /boot partition, a 20gb / partition, a 10gb swap partition, and left the rest ( about 160gb ) unformatted, for windows 7, but i didn't get that far.
I picked the dk.latin-1.map.gz keymap, and choose the locale da_DK everywhere i could get to it.
For packages, i selected base, and added wireless_tools as well

When the system rebooted after being installed, i started by putting up wireless (WEP). No problems there

Then i went on with the guide, updating pacman with -Syu, adding a user, configuring alsa, installing nvidia and xorg.
When it came to testing xorg, i was a little anxious, because it had crashed a couple of times on the first install too, and i didn't remember what I did to make it work. So i invoked X --config and nvidia-xconfig, and then X -config /root/xorg.conf.new as the guide stated. This was where it crashed last time, and this was where it crashed this time. A little flickering on the screen, changing between different shades of black, and then frooze. Nothing i could do, i decided that maybe it needed some more tweeking.
Only, when i rebooted, i ran into this crash.
I'll write down, what seems to have the slightest connection with the errors it's throwing:

[...] Loads of uninteresting lines (i think)
Freeing unused kernel memory: 484k freed
:: Loading Initramfs
:: Running Hook [udev]
:: Loading udev...input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard as /devices/platform/i8042/serio0/input/input1
done.
Waiting 10 seconds for device /dev/disk/by-uuid/edcf26ba-6c09-4344-a8ff-c258f217e632 ...

Root device '/dev/disk/by-uuid/edcf26ba-6c09-4344-a8ff-c258f217e632' doesn't exist, attempting to create it
ERROR: Failed to parse vlock device ids for '/dev/disk/by-uuid/edcf26ba-6c09-4344-a8ff-c258f217e632'
ERROR: Unable to detect ir create root device '/dev/disk/by-uuid/edcf26ba-6c09-4344-a8ff-c258f217e632'
You are being dropped to a recovery shell
Type 'reboot' to reboot
Type 'exit' to try and continue booting
NOTE: klibc contains no 'ls' binary, use 'echo *' instead

If the device '/dev/disk/by-uuid/edcf26ba-6c09-4344-a8ff-c258f217e632' gets created while you are here, try adding 'rootdelay=10' or higher to the kernel command-line
ramfs$ exit
Trying to continue (this will most likely fail)...
:: Inittramfs Completed - control passing to kinit
IP-Config: no device to configure
Waiting 0 s before mounting root device...
modprobe: FATAL: Could no load /lib/modules/2.6.31-ARCH/modules.dep: No Such file or directory
modprobe: FATAL: Could no load /lib/modules/2.6.31-ARCH/modules.dep: No Such file or directory
kinit: Unable to mount root fs on device dev(0,0)
kinit: init not found!
Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!
Pid: 1, comm: kinit Not tainted 2.6.31-ARCH #1
Call Trace:
[<ffffffff81384018>] ? panic+0x9a/0x154
[<ffffffff810675fc>] ? exit_ptrace+0xbc/0x160
[<ffffffff8105de22>] ? do_exit+0x6f2/0x7d0
[<ffffffff8105e032>] ? sys_exit+0x22/0x30
[<ffffffff8100c382>] ? system_call_fastpath+0x16/0x1b
_
[...] No more output after that.

Now that i look at the exact error message with that 2.6.31-ARCH/modules.dep stuff, before the crash, i think it said something about 2.6.31-ARCH.
After installing the nvidia package, i tried modprobe -a, but it said something about 2.6.31-ARCH being in use or did not exist or did not exist properly, or something along those lines. I took it for a simple rights-problem, or perhaps some part of the system forgot to close it properly. I wouldn't have known what to do about it, anyway.

Ask away, if there's something I forgot to tell, or perhaps tell me if there is an easy way to access and extract the logs.