Here is the output of the not booting 2.6.8-022stab072:
Loading Adaptec I2O RAID: Version 2.4 Build 5go
Detecting Adaptec I2O RAID controllers...
ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:06:01.0[A] -> GSI 72 (level, low) -> IRQ 72
Adaptec I2O RAID controller 0 irq=72
BAR0 f4807000 - size= 100000
BAR1 f4998000 - size= 1000000
dpti: If you have a lot of devices this could take a few minutes
dpti0: Reading the hardware ressource table.
dpti0: Get status timeout.
scsi0: Vendor: Adaptec Model:
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
serio: i8042 AUX port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12
input: PS/2 Generic Mouse on isa0060/serio1
serio:i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1
input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard on isa0060/serio0
device-mapper: 4.1.0-ioctl (2003-12-10) initialised: dm@uk.sistina.com
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP: routing cache hash table of 16384 buckets, 128Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 524288 bind 65536)
NET: Registered protocol family 1
Starting balanced_irq
VFS: Cannot open root device "sda2" or unknown-block(0,0)
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)
Both kernels have these options set. While the 2.6.16 kernel boots, the 2.6.8 kernel doesn't:
CONFIG_SCSI_AIC79XX=y
CONFIG_AIC79XX_CMDS_PER_DEVICE=32
CONFIG_AIC79XX_RESET_DELAY_MS=15000
# CONFIG_AIC79XX_BUILD_FIRMWARE is not set
CONFIG_AIC79XX_ENABLE_RD_STRM=y
CONFIG_AIC79XX_DEBUG_ENABLE=y
CONFIG_AIC79XX_DEBUG_MASK=0
CONFIG_AIC79XX_REG_PRETTY_PRINT=y
CONFIG_SCSI_DPT_I2O=y
#
# I2O device support
#
CONFIG_I2O=m
CONFIG_I2O_CONFIG=m
# CONFIG_I2O_BLOCK is not set
CONFIG_I2O_SCSI=m
CONFIG_I2O_PROC=m