Updating 2.6.15 to 2.6.17-6

["T. M." <gtrive@gmail.com>]

Hi,
I've recently re-installed Debian Testing (10th July) with kernel  
2.6.15.
I decided to update to 2.6.17-6 but it freezes on startup on

"
Memory hole size: 0 MB
Built 1 zonelist
Kernel command line: ...
mpic: ...
PID hash table entries: 4096 (order: 12, 16384 bytes)
GMT Delta read from XPRAM: 0 minutes, DST: off
time_init: decrement frequency = 18.432000 Mhz
time_init: processor frequency = 1499.99999 Mhz
"

What can I do?
I can boot with the old kernel but how do I recompile the same kernel  
without messing everything up?

Thanks guys!

Mark.