[LUAU] Kernel panic?

[Karen Lofstrom]

I had assembled my Frankensteined system unit, installed Mandrake, and had
my new Linux box working successfully. BUT ... I didn't have IDE cables
long enough to connect to the drive drawer. So I got and installed new
cables, booted up the machine, and got an error message. The system starts
lilo, chugs along until it gets to mounting root, fails, flails around a
bit, and then gives me a kernel panic message.

It can't be the hard drive isn't working, or it wouldn't get as far as it
does. I'm sure that this is something simple and obvious, but flipping
through my Linux books doesn't help. Any advice for a confused Linux
newbie?

-- 
Karen Lofstrom

yes, newbie, because this is the first time I've built a Linux system from
scratch