[newbie] Linux Not Booting, Error in root partition!

[Marc Resnick]

Uh oh, not again. Anyway, Linux is claiming that my root partition was unmounted improperly, even though I shut down correctly. It checks for errors, finds a bunch and corrects them, then asks if I want to correct something(can result in data loss), but It's kinda frozen, and I can't choose in option. It also says run cfsk(or something similar to that, I can't remember) manually, and says that this can also result in dataloss. Here's why I think it happened:   I was told yesterday by someone on this list to add something like --preload ext3 fs when I did mkinitrd for kernel 2.6.3. I did that, and it booted, but said it couldn't write to /home. I figure that it wasn't reading the partition right. Then I shut down, and went to sleep. Today, I booted with my old kernel, and this happened.   I'd really like to get Linux back online, and maybe Kernel 2.6.3 also. Help please?   Thanks, Marc