This is somewhat urgent for me. I know it won't mean anything for you if you help me, but please, I need this to be fixed ASAP.

Recently I started getting lots of 'failed' messages during boot and I haven't made any changes that I can think of that would cause this. The failed messages appear on the following:

* Mounting /dev/hda1 with type vfat on /C. (Says that the kernel support is either screwed or non-existent fro tpye vfat)
* Activating internet connection on eth0. (Don't know why; obviously it's working right now in Win ME)
* Hotplugging support (which causes my USB mouse to not work)
* Some others but I can't remember which...

What I wanted to do was copy all my personal data (like pictures and settings and such) onto hda1, so that I could reformat my Lin partitions and re-install SuSE. But I can't since for some reason vfat won't mount anymore.

I've already trying creating a custom 2.4.x kernel using the support settings I had before plus a few others (like better mouse support and un-modularizing critical components). This did absolutely nothing whatsoever, and just forced me to re-install the nVidia drivers.

Erm...help?

(My specs are in my sig; it's the one with SuSE)

Are you sure that grub/lilo is booting the correct kernel image? This seems really strange.

This almost certainly seems to be a kernel problem to me, but you said that you didn't make any relevant changes and you even made your own kernel image -neither of those improved your situation. How is it that you can make your own kernel image, have grub/lilo load that image at boot, and then finally end up with a different kernel image that does not contain any of your customizations.

I doubt anyone is going to be able to help you on this one. Maybe some witchcraft or supernatural forces are working against you....

Check your bootloader conf file for the SuSE entry: lilo.conf or /boot/grub/menu.lst (if you're using grub). Compare the files named in that config file with the contents of /boot. Make sure they agree exactly. Any difference in the file names will probably cause problems.

Then check the contents of /etc/fstab. Compare the partitions listed there with the contents of the bootloader config. Make sure they also agree exactly.

Some of the common problems with making a new kernel:
1) failing to run mk_initrd for the new kernel.
2) failing to copy the new bzimage to boot (as vmlinuz, with or without the version number).
3) failing to copy the new initrd to /boot (with or without the version number).
4) failing to edit the bootloader config to show the new files.

Seems to me I read something about SuSE kernel compile that required a new System.map as well. I can't find it now. I could be mistaken about that.

Well...thanks for your suggestions, but seeing as I've had no internet for the last few days, I couldn't read them in time: I've just wiped my Lin partitions and installed Slackware 10 instead. The only problem I'm having now is that my speakers produce an endless sine after Alsa starts up.
(Sorry guys!)

Thanks anyway,

-TMG