After Sarge->Etch update: Computer doesn't boot. Wife unhappy.

[Daniel Haude <dhaude@physnet.uni-hamburg.de>]

Hello,

After I did a sarge->etch update on the weekend the machine frequenty
hangs during bootup with the message: waiting for root filesystem. All I
can do is type "reboot" at the (initramfs) prompt, then it reboots and
usually gets beyond that point.

But of course now I'm in my office, and my wife called: Computer doesn't
boot. She rebooted it no less than four times (including  turning it off
and on again), and it always hangs with that message. She needs to work
from home, and my computer is the print server.

Now we're both unhappy.

What can have happened there?

--Dan