Make rescue CD?

[Elmer E. Dow]

I'm a newbie getting ready to install a newer RH9 kernel and I'd like to
have a rescue CD on hand in case I mess up. My IBM R40 laptop (dual boot
WinXP and RH9) has no floppy drive, so I need to make a rescue CD.

According to RedHat's documentation, once I do manage to get into rescue
mode, the rescue image location "must contain a valid installation tree, and
the installation tree must be for the same version of Red Hat Linux as the
Red Hat Linux CD-ROM #1 from which you booted. If you used a boot CD-ROM or
diskette to start rescue mode, the installation tree must be from the same
tree from which the media was created."

I installed RH9 off a college's network, so my present version (2.4.20-20.9)
doesn't match CD #1 (2.4.20) in my boxed set. Now I'm going to try an even
newer kernel (2.4.20-31.9 -- which I hope may remedy another problem) which
also won't match the CD #1 or the boot CD that I made.

So how do I make a rescue CD that matches my version and will really work?