I compiled my own custom kernel for the first time. I tinkered with different options, nothing to difficult. I actually didn't expect it to work the first time.

I had kept the original lilo boot config just in case something was to go wrong. Now when I try to boot the system, I always get a "VFS: cannot mount root system on (8,3)". I googled this and found that my kernel did not support my root filesystem (btrfs). So I made an initrd with btrfs kernel module, but it didn't help. I then got a string of errors about how /dev could not be mounted.

My question is two-fold. First, how come when I configure the system back to when it was first installed, it still won't boot? Im using the same kernel (2.6.37.6-smp). Second, how can I get myself out of this rut without reinstalling?

lilo.conf
BTW, I have been maintenancing the system by chrooting into the device off of my slackware boot disk. Im on slack 13.37

Thanks!

reinstall the kernels and modules from the boot disk.

First thing you should learn about using a custom kernel is to leave the old kernel in place and making an extra entry in lilo.conf. That usualy means copying the new vmlinuz/system.map to /boot with custom names so they don't overwrite the original ones.

well I did copy the custom kernel to the /boot directory with a custom name but somewhere along the way something got messed up.

I just reinstalled the kernel packages from the cd and it works great. Thanks for your help.