Squeeze update => disk unbootable

[Frank Miles <fpm@u.washington.edu>]

I've just tried updating a seldom-used laptop from "lenny" (2.6.26 custom-compiled kernel)
to "squeeze".  Everything seemed to be working perfectly until the reboot.  Rebooting 
gives a repeated message "fsck died with exit status 8".

Using nano to rename the /etc/fstab entries /dev/hdaX -> /dev/sdaX does no good - same
message occurs.  The kernel that it's trying to boot is still the 2.6.26.

Booting from a "rescue" CD allows me to successfully e2fsck all the linux partitions
- they all come out clean.

The grub2 config references /dev/hdaX rather than /dev/sdaX.

Is there some way to make this system self-consistently functional?  Without scrubbing
and starting all over?

Thanks for any helpful hints!

     -Frank