It’s been a few weeks since I built a Crux system on my Inspiron, and Crux reminded me of that last night when I built two or three kernels over the stretch of several hours, none of which would boot. Any self-confidence I had in setting it up was completely washed out by repeated kernel panics, blinking caps lock LEDs and that weird feeling of inadequacy that accompanies the learning process.
Not wanting to get too frustrated, I waited and tried again this morning, which was wise. If my calculations are correct, I failed to give those kernels any support for hard drive connections last night. In other words, no ATA et al. support.
Silly me. No wonder they couldn’t find the hard drive.
It just goes to show, even if you’ve tackled a problem once, it doesn’t make you an expert. Those kernel setups change all the time, and it’s easy to leave out the option that makes it all work. But it is nice of Crux to hand me a little plate of humility. 
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