Aside: Only yesterday I had to compile and install the latest kernel to get NVIDIA's "non-GPL" kernel to load, but for the chance to run tuxracer faster than 1 frame a second it's worth it!

Well, I might consider doing that. Possibly. But first things first.

I just had this same problem yesterday, the trick was to switch the BIOS disk identifiers over(!)

I'll try that tonight.

I had a few problems with a IDE Ultra-2 DMA drive which wouldn't boot after the debian install (halts before INIT), but booting a newer kernel (2.4.17) worked fine. Maybe there's a problem with 2.2.20 and newer ide controllers?

Well, I have my dmesg from the Redhat distro (which doesn't have the problem), so I'll have it to hand whilst compiling, although this is a later kernel than the RH one. I can then compare what's happening. But I do suspect some IDE shenanigans going on. (It's an IDE Ultra-2 DMA drive too)

and yes, debian rocks, although it's not flavour of the month until I get this sorted. (note the number of grrrs in my last e-mail!)

Ricardo