I not sure what I've been doing wrong I've tried recompiling the kernel with the steps mentioned in the Kernel-HOWTO, but always seem to get "Unresolved symbols" messages pop-up on the screen after I type depmod and when boot in the kernel that I just compiled.

There is a general issue with unresolved dependenceis in dynamic libraries( .so). During compile/linking time if there are unresolved dependency in a .so no error is shown. These errors show up during load time, which in your case is during depmod.

In your case the possibility is that you have comiled something as a module (.so) and it has some dependancy which has not been compiled into the kernel or as a module. So the problem must be in the .config file. Based on the load time errors you should be able to loacte what additionaly needs to be built.
Thanks.