Newbie creates "Kernel Panic"

[Nicholas Comino]

Trying to recompile a kernel to get LAN working (ALi 1689 chipset driver). The instructions I was trying to follow were from http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?s=&threadid=73436 which have worked in the past, and I really don't know what I managed to stuff up this time. Previously I had kernel 2.6.10 working, and was trying to redo the same thing by adding in the correct driver modules into /usr/src/linux-2.6.10/drivers/net/tulip/. I'm starting to think what I did the first time was to leave out a "-" somewhere, the error was "file not found". The second time around I tried to compile straight over the top of the working 2.6.10 kernel. 

The error on reboot: 

Uncompressing Linux... Ok, booting the jernel. 
audit(1106411054.995:0): initialized
AC'97 1 access is not valid [0xffffffff], removing mixer.
Unable to initialize codec #1
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)

and the system needs to be rebooted. I still have the original kernel booting. Previously errors flashed by when shutting down and rebooting things were going wrong with IP-Tables.

On my instructions, the last command "/sbin/grub-install" never works. I wonder if that's an error. The problem might also be being caused by the Nvidia graphics driver, but I can't retrace that problem just at the moment. One last important symptom, when recompiling the kernel there were substantially less modules compiled and even fewer installed (make modules, make modules_install) where previously these took up to 20mins they took less than a minute and seconds respectively. 

I have another shot at making it work, but one more botch and I am likely to have to reinstall the OS. Can I recover the previous compile? Or any idea what I did so I don't stuff it again? It's probably a typo somewhere. 

* feels like the most accident prone linux newbie ever. 
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