What filesystem is on the /dev/sda image that qemu is using? You'll need to

either build your kernel with the support for that built into the kernel,
or an initrd that modprobes the filesystem module, and then mounts the
filesystem (then there's a few fun and games involved in pivoting from
the ram filesystem the initrd is using as root, to the disk image filesystem
that you want as the root filesystem after boot).

Thanks for the response. This is helpful. I copied the vmlinuz and initrd image from my host, and that seemed to get me further.

Now blkid says:

/dev/sda: SEC_TYPE="msdos" UUID="6815-7325" TYPE="vfat"

The mount command indicates that it mounted successfully at /root.

The contents of /root are just:

vmlinuz syslinux.cfg initrd.img ldlinux.c32 ldlinux.sys

I realize that isn't enough to get the system up, so I would like to try to figure out what I need to drop in there to get the system going. I think that the other responses that people have so kindly sent to my question might help me further, since they talk about init.

Although I copied vmlinuz and initrd from the host to get this far, I hope to eventually figure out how to do something less hacky. I am able to build the kernel, but I don't really know what's involved with building initrd for the guest. (It seems I was able to build one on the host using initramfs, but I'd like to figure out how to build one for the host. I'd also like to better understand the "fun and games" you were talking about with pivoting from the ram filesystem to the disk image filesystem. ...but I'll take it one step at a time, I guess.)

By the way, I'm a double alum (BS and MS) from VT. Go Hokies!

Thanks again,

Patrick