Custom kernel does not boot

I installed Knoppix on my hdd. I chose reiserfs. I need to recompile kernel in order to make it work with ALi 15x3 chipset and USB 2.0. After compilation and installation of the kernel it cannot boot because it cannot use reiserfs root partition. Is there any way to make properly working initrd on Knoppix?

Here is my kerenel compilation procedure:

1. su root
2. apt-get install kernel-source-2.4.20
3. cd /usr/src
4. tar --bzip2 -xvf kernel-source-2.4.20.tar.bz2
5. ln -s kernel-source-2.4.20 linux
6. patch -p0 < patches/alim15x3.patch
7. cd linux
8. patch -p1 < ../patches/usb-ehci-2.4.20-pre11.patch
9. make xconfig
10. make-kpkg clean
11. make-kpkg --append_to_version -crusoe --initrd --revision=01 \
kernel_image modules_image
12. cd ..
13. dpkg -i kernel-image*.deb
14. Adding new kernel entry to lilo.conf
15. lilo
16 Rebooting...

What's wrong with this procedure. I am not able to make proper initrd even when I use mkinitrd command. When I was trying to compile kernel and install it I got warings about initrd. Does it mean that this feature does not work on Debian/Knoppix? I notice knx-hdinstall does not use cramsfs. Are there any ways to customize mkinitrd.conf to use ext2???

Ok um as far as I know initrd is a ram disk that is started by init (I could be wrong) so first you will need a working init. Knoppix uses (from what I can gather, although it may not be used in a hdd install) a modified, staticly linked version of ash(called ash-knoppix) that also serves as init and modutils and maybe some other stuff. If your kernel has been changed enough (make sure you start with the .config file used in the stock kernel) then you may need to recompile ash-knoppix so that it will work with your new kernel (according to the custom kernel faq, although I cant find any documentation on how to do this exactly).

Oh, personally I've never had much luck with ALI chipsets and would trade one that I have for an intel or via chipset if I had the chance.

I had more luck without initrd and with reiserfs builtin.