[ilugd]: kernel panic

[bsf]

hi,

i am using redhat 7.1 under vmware. y'day i was optimising the hdd of 
vmware and my system crashed. when i mounted the linux its giving me .

 Partition check:
    sda: sda1 sda2 
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
change_root: old root had d_count=3
Freeing unused kernel memory: 236k freed
kernel panic: no init found. Try passing init= option to kernel.

i have been checking sites.. most of them suggest reinstalling.. i tried 
boot: linux init=single, boot: root=/dev/sda5 ...same problem.
i want to know  how to find out what went wrong and how to correct the 
current installation.

please suggest.
bsf