Trouble booting a fresh built kernel--stuck on `loading initial ramdisk`

[Tony Fischetti <tony.fischetti@gmail.com>]

Any kernel I compile gets stuck on the "loading initial ramdisk"
stage. It tried it multiple different ways and the result is always
the same. Any advice on what I can do to find out what's going on,
would be greatly appreciated

More info: I'm using stable. The most recent attempt was basically as
outlined in the most recent "Debian Administrator's Handbook".
Concretely, installing linux-source (the one with the debian patches
[4.19]), extracting it in another directory, using the kernel config
from /boot/config-the-stock-kernel, make deb-pkg, and finally dpkg -i
theheaders theimage

I've tried a few other methods, too, like the method in the debian
kernel handbook, etc...

I don't think it's a problem with the initrd because I inspected it
(zcat / cpio / etc) and its not missing any files present in the stock
initrd that works
Thanks!