reference docs:

scsi controller is Cirrus Logic 5434 PCI
i pulled out the old sound card to install Linksys 10/100 NIC

here's info i copied from the FILO Boot start-up, notes
and Bios set-up screens......

MNF: Packard Bell (Intel Pentium 100MHZ)
BIOS: Phoenix Bios Copywrite 1985-1994
32 Bit I/O {Disabled}
HD: IDE 853 MB (Bios setup screen)

----------------------------

Partitions: / 	<< Root >> 700 MB
		<< Swap >> 16 MB
	     /boot	        2 MB


-------------------------


Boot screen  

Ramdiskdriver initialized : 16 Ramdisks of 4096K in size
ide0: buggy cmd640b interface on PCI (Type 1), config=0x7e
ide1:serialized,secondary interface OK
cmd640:drive0 timings/prefetch(on) preserved, clocks 2/3/3
cmd640:drive1 timings/prefetch(on) preserved, clocks 2/3/3
cmd640:drive2 timings/prefetch(on) preserved, clocks 3/6/14
cmd640:drive3 timings/prefetch(on) preserved, clocks 3/6/14
hda: Maxtor 7850 AV, 814 MB w/64K Cache, CHS=827/32/63
hdc:Matsushita CR-581, ATAPI CD ROM DRIVE
ide2: ports already in use, skipping probe
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x1f7,0x3f6 on IRQ 14
ide0 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on IRQ 15 (serialized with ide0)
floppy drives(s):fd0 is 1.44 MB
FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077
md driver0.36.3 MAX_MD_DEV=4, MAX_REAL=8
scsi: 0 hosts
scsi: detected total.
Partition Check:
hda: hda1 hda2 < hda5 hda6 >
EXT-fs: 03:01: couldn't mount because of unsupported optional features.
[MS-DOS FS Rel. 12 FAT 0, check=n, conv=b,uid=0,gid=0,unmask=022,bmap]
[me=oxo,cs=0,#f=0,fi=0,ds=0,de=0,data=0,se=0,ts=0,ls=0,fc=4294967295]
Transaction block size=512
Kernel Panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:01

your time is very much appreciated

-arturo