Very Computer

Hi all.  I recently got a new motherboard to replace my elderly 486, and
I am having difficulties booting up.  I downloaded the bare.i bootdisk
image from sunsite
(/pub/Linux/distributions/slackware/bootdisk.144/bare.i), and I can boot
from that when I use it in conjunction with a root floppy.  However, if
I try to boot using that same bootdisk and I specify 'mount
root=/dev/hdc1' instead of simply hitting return at the 'boot:' prompt,
the kernel boot process gets as far as "INIT: version 2.69 booting", and
freezes.  I still get response from the caps and num lock keys, but
nothing else.

The system is a VXtwo PCI/ISA PnP motherboard, Cyrix 6x86 MX PR 200 CPU,
and has an S3 ViRGE-DX video card and an AE200PnP ethernet adapter in
it.

Does anyone have any idea how I can get it running off of this generic
kernel with my regular filesystem mounted?  I need to be able to compile
a new custom kernel for the new hardware.

Any and all help much appreciated!

-Christian

New information:
I downloaded the bare.i kernel and its associated System.map file
(/pub/Linux/distributions/slackware/kernels/bare.i/* from sunsite).  I got
into my system using floppies (as described below), and put the System.map
file in place.  Then I booted from Win95 startup using loadlin and the
bare.i kernel image.  It got to the "INIT: version 2.96 booting" message,
and then init segfaulted, causing a kernel panic and halt.

I need to get this system up and running as soon as possible for schoolwork
and such.  Can anyone help?