Alright, I've just installed Damn Small Linux 3. I have a SATA drive, and it isn't noticing it. After a little googling, I notice that DSL doesn't support SATA (the kernel), but DSL-N does. However, I don't really want to reinstall everything, so I thought I'd just go pick up the newest kernel from kernel.org. I went through some tutorials, and compiled it just fine. I installed it, and set it up into GRUB. However, when booting, it gets past the "Uncompressing Linux: Ok, booting the kernel.", and then it says, "Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)"

What did I do wrong?

Make sure you have your filesystem support built in and not as a module. Also, of course, enable sata when you are configuring. Another option is to pick up a config from Slackware. Those are solid. Again make sure you change the config from the Slackware kernels to have your filesystem like Reiserfs, ext3, or whatever compiled right in, NOT as a module. Enable sata and you should be good to go.

One other thing. Make sure your entries in /etc/fstab are okay.

whenever I get the kernel panic message. It has bee due to a space mising in the initrd line of my grub.conf aks menu.lst file. Hope you have this easy a fix.
File is found in /boot/grub/