[wplug] dumb question about hard drives

[Hoss]

Hello,

This has been bugging me for awhile, so I figured I may as well ask.
With the hard drive I currently use as my linux partition, most kernel's
won't get past "partition check: hda". It'll just sit there infinitely.
The only exception has been slackware 8.1, which uses the kernel 2.4.18
FreeBSD gives me a different error about hda, but that's a whole nother
story. I was able to install slackware 9.0, but I used the old kernel from
8.1. I just assumed my HD was fucked, but if it works with 2.4.18, there
must be a way to install a newer kernel on it. The main problem being,
booting from an install CD that uses 2.4.20 and freezes at the partition
check. Anyone ever have a similar problem? Any ideas appreciated.

Thanks!
hoss