I've tried extensively to look for help with this one, but no luck.

I boot from an external laptop hdd and get the following error before the boot up freezes:

mount: error 6 mounting reiserfs
pivotroot: pivot_root(/sysroot,/sysroot/initrd) failed: 2
umount /initrd/proc failed: 2
<6>Freeing unused kernel memory: 180k freed
Kernel panic - not syncing: No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel.
sda5 sda6 sda7 >

I'm sure the kernel panic is a result of the mount error before, but how do I deal with it?

my grub entry is:

title Linux
root (hd0,0)
kernel /linux-2.6.11 root_delay=15 root=/dev/sda5
initrd /initrd.img

Before you ask... yes I have the initrd ramdisk compiled into the kernel.

initrd.img was made by:
mkinitrd -v -f --preload ehci-hcd --preload scsi_mod --preload sd_mod --preload usb-storage --fstab=/etc/fstab.ext initrd.img 2.6.11

I use a different fstab file as stated above which has:
/dev/sda1 /boot ext2 defaults, noatime 1 2
/dev/sda2 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/sda5 / reiserfs noatime 0 0
/dev/sda6 /usr reiserfs noatime 0 0
/dev/sda7 /home reiserfs noatime 0 0

I have also tried compiling the kernel with reiserfs as a module to be preloaded as well as ext2, but still no luck.
At the moment, they're both comipled into the kernel.

any suggestions???