Kernel Panic: VFS Unable to mount root fs on 03:01

[matt@debian.debian.org]

My Hamm system is a couple weeks old, and I'm trying to roll my own kernel.  The first few trys seemed to work, (removing PCI support, setting processor type to 486, etc...), but now, no matter how simple of a kernel I try to build, the system won't reboot.  The kernel loads, then, after about 3/4 of a screen of normal startup messages, the system halts with:

     VFS: Can't open root device 03:01
     Kernel Panic: VFS unable to mount root fs on 03:01

What do these messages mean, what have I done to myself, and how can I undo it?

I installed the 2.0.34 kernel source package.  I think I'm following the instructions in /usr/doc/kernel-source-2.0.34/README.  I do:

    make mrproper
    make menuconfig
    make dep
    make clean
    make zImage
    make modules
    make modules_install
    cp /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/zImage /boot/vmlinuz-2.0.34
    lilo

Here is some other potentially relevant info:

$ less /etc/lilo.conf
boot=/dev/hda1
root=/dev/hda1
install=/boot/boot.b
map=/boot/map
vga=normal
delay=20
image=/vmlinuz
label=Linux
read-only

$ ls -l /vmlinuz
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root           19 Sep  7 15:01 /vmlinuz -> boot/vmlinuz-2.0.34

$ ls -l /boot
total 295
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root          512 Sep  7 15:27 boot.0301
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root         4536 Nov 21  1997 boot.b
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root          300 Nov 21  1997 chain.b
-rw-------   1 root     root         6656 Sep 15 23:12 map
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root          444 Dec 12  1997 mbr.b
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root          308 Nov 21  1997 os2_d.b
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root       281865 Sep 15 23:12 vmlinuz-2.0.34

Thanks,

Matt Miller

---- "Software is never finished, it is only released"
---- Mike Gancarz, The Unix Philosophy