make-kpkg and initrd

[daniel desages <daniel@desages.com>]

Hello,
I just tried to install a custom kernel image made with : 

kernel-source-2.4.12
patch-2.4.13-pre3.bz2
preempt-kernel-rml-2.4.13-pre3-1.patch

used the debian default config for 2.4 stock kernel-image 

making the package with : 
sudo make-kpkg clean
sudo make-kpkg --initrd --revision=preempt.1.1 kernel_image

compilation and install of the deb package goes well but it's not bootable : 
get a kernel panic  : 
Can't find a valid RAM disk image at 0. 
I checked, it's there. and lilo config looks OK.

does make-kpkg make bad initrd files ?