Dimension 5150c bootup failure after installation

I've just bought a new Dell Dimension 5150c (160 GB SATA drive, 2.66 Duo 
Core Intel) on which I'm trying to install Etch. The installation runs 
fine, but on first boot, it hangs up at the following:

      Begin: Waiting for root filesystem... ...
      Done.
           Check root= bootarg cat /proc/cmdline
           or missing modules, devices: cat /proc/modules ls /dev
      ALERT! /dev/sda8 does not exist. Dropping to a shell!

(/dev/sda8 is the drive to which Debian was installed.)

I've googled this, and found others with the same problem, but no solutions.

I was able to successfully install Knoppix 5.0 on another sector, so I'm 
guessing there may be a way to fix this, but my skill levels are far 
away from the level of being able to diagnose it. Any suggestions would 
be deeply appreciated.

Chuck

---------------------------
Charles Muller

Toyo Gakuen University
Faculty of Humanities
1660 Hiregasaki, Nagareyama-shi
Chiba 270-0161 JAPAN
Mobile Phone: 090-9310-1787

Web Site: Resources for East Asian Language and Thought
http://www.acmuller.net

<acmuller[at]jj.em-net.ne.jp>