I've just upgraded my Fedora Core 2 kernel to 2.6.9, and while my computer is booting up with the new kernel, the boot process stops while probing my computer's hardware. It dosen't freeze up, it just stops. When the kernel starts booting, I also get an audit error message about hard drive ports being used. My computer contains an ASUS 875P motherboard, 2 120 GB SATA drives, an LG DVD+/-RW drive, a generic 52x CD drive (just in case my LG drive dosen't work), a Sony floppy drive, an SB Audigy Gamer card, and a Radeon 9600XT card. I know that my Promise SATA controller isn't at fault, because I'm running this in compatible mode (for legacy OS'es such as Windows 9x and MS-DOS), and my computer boots fine when I use the originally installed 2.6.5 kernel. Any help would be appreciated.

If you compiled IEEE1394 (firewire) support (as module or as part of kernel) that is the problem.
I had the same problem with a NForce3 board that had onboard firewire and a SB Audigy2 that had firewire on the soundcard. Just compile without the firewire and see if it works.