LinuxQuestions.org - Problem with kernel after dist-upgrade

Hello.

I have a Debian Sarge system with kernel 2.4.27-3-686 on x86 and xfree86 and the nvidia driver.
Recently I made an 'apt-get dist-upgrade' mainly to get xorg easily but got some errors concerning
the kernel. the install failed. so i did an 'apt-get -f install' to fix the kernel but i got -

You are attempting to install a kernel image (version 2.4.27-3-686)
However, the directory /lib/modules/2.4.27-3-686 still exists. If this
directory belongs to a previous kernel-image-2.4.27-3-686 package, and if
you have deselected some modules, or installed standalone modules
packages, this could be bad. However, if this directory exists because
you are also installing some stand alone modules right now, and they
got unpacked before I did, then this is pretty benign. Unfortunately,
I can not tell the difference.

If /lib/modules/2.4.27-3-686 belongs to a old install of
kernel-image-2.4.27-3-686, then this is your last chance to abort the
installation of this kernel image (nothing has been changed yet).

If this directory is because of stand alone modules being installed
right now, or if it does belong to an older kernel-image-2.4.27-3-686
package but you know what you are doing, and if you feel that this
image should be installed despite this anomaly, Please answer n to the
question.

Otherwise, I suggest you move /lib/modules/2.4.27-3-686 out of the way,
perhaps to /lib/modules/2.4.27-3-686.old or something, and then try
re-installing this image.
Do you want to stop now? [Y/n]

so i told him to continue.... now the kernel panics whenever i try to boot it.

what can i do?

i would like to keep the current kernel because i have the nvidia driver already compiled to it and i always have problems compiling it.

and the ALSA sound server.

thanks, Heeap.