kernel panic while mounting root fs

[Andrei Ivanov <c680789@showme.missouri.edu>]

I just had to replace a motherboard in my Linux box (floppy controller
went bad) and now, for some reason, when I'm trying to boot my 2.2.10
kernel, I get kernel panic while mounting root fs.
I can't reproduce the exact message right now, but it seems that while
booting it's doing a normal partition check and fails then.
However, I can boot my 2.0.36 kernel off the boot disk without a single
problem (yet, I might get some headaches because I can not recompile the
2.0.36 kernel since I switched to 2.2.10)
Any idea why 2.2.10 panics and 2.0.36 boots? 

TIA,
 Andrew