I have an 8 GB harddisk I've been using for a very long time of running
Gentoo (1.4).
It has never presented a problem I couldn't fix, so far, but now I'm
stumbled.

I've been
compiling kernels for a while now, I'm not new to compiling, installing
and configuring GRUB, so I know what I'm doing most of the time.

Though this time it's different.

Roughly a week ago, I compiled the 2.6.7 kernel (straight from
kernel.org), without any problems.
Now, I have a new monitor, and wanted to reconfigure X11, and install
the latest NVidia driver taht was released a few days ago.
So, I configured X okay, and was installing the NVidia driver, when it
halted on an error, saying I needed to switch off 'rivafb' in my kernel,
thus having to recompile the kernel.

After the kernel compiled (and modules), I placed the files (bzImage and
System.map) in /boot, as I always do, and rebooted.

Now here is where it started happening.

Once booting into 2.6.7, it gave me an error saying (from the tops of my
head) "Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs /dev/hda3".

Though, I know hda3 is my root
filesystem.

So I rebooted again, and luckily I still had my 2.6.6 kernel, so I
booted into that (where I am now).
The first thing I did was check my kernel settings, which were all okay
in my eyes.
To be safe, I deleted the .config file, and grabbed my backed up copy of
my 2.6.6 .config file. I did a 'make
mrproper', copied the backup .config file, set up the "new" features,
'make menuconfig' to check to be certain (and re-removed the 'rivafb',
hey, I'm not that stupid, heh), then compiled the kernel and modules,
and installed the lot.

Rebooted again, and, the same problem.

After doing the same for a few hundred time, I got so sick of it, that I
re-downloaded the 2.6.7 kernel completely, and set that one up manually.
But STILL the same damn error occurd.

This does NOT make sense, at all.

This is a part of my grub.config file:

---
title Linux; Gentoo 1.4 (Kernel 2.6.7)
root (hd0,0)
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/kernel-2.6.7 root=/dev/hda3
video=vesafb:ywrap,mtrr vga=0x317
initrd=(hd0,0)/boot/initrd-1024x768
title Linux; Gentoo 1.4 (Kernel 2.6.6)
root (hd0,0)
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/kernel-2.6.6 root=/dev/hda3
video=vesafb:ywrap,mtrr vga=0x317
initrd=(hd0,0)/boot/initrd-1024x768
---

Before going on; Yes, I did try and boot with no initrd and only "kernel
(hd0,0)/boot/kernel-2.6.7 root=/dev/hda3", in fact, I even tried typing
it out myself in the GRUB command-line.

Now there's another thing, which I think is the main issue here.
This is the result of "fdisk -l":

---
Disk /dev/hda: 8399 MB, 8399978496 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 16276 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 63 31720+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 64 1056 500472 82 Linux swap
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/hda3 1057 16276 7670880 83 Linux
---

Is it possible that the bad cylinder boundary on partition 2 is causing
this?
If so, how do I fix it?

Oh, both HDA1 and HDA3 are EXT3, and yes, I did turn the switch on in
the kernel as well.



Any help would be much appreciated.