New kernel crashing - how to test without corrupting disks?

[Ramasubramanian Ramesh <rramesh@ti.com>]

Hi,

 I am having problems with CD mounting crashing 2.6.1. Each time it 
craches it freezes and I need to hard reset.
Reboot always has severe disk errors on /var and some time in /. I 
suspect improper set of driver combo to be the
problem. I like to try a couple of combination. But like to minimize the 
risk of disk corruption. How do I
prepare before issuing an kernel-killing command? Perhaps go into single 
user mode and unmount most of
the partitions? Are are more things that can be done to prepate well for 
a freeze test?

Thanks and Regards
Ramesh