gparted live cd boots fine, debian doesn't. why?

Hi. I've recently changed my motherboard to Asus P5Q-PRO. Right after installing it, I tried booting my Debian Lenny installation, but it stopped saying "waiting for root file system". After that I tried a number of things, including some live cds, but none worked. then I came accross the gparted liveCD, and it worked fine. I then copied the kernel, initrd.img and the modules to the hdd, and now I'm using the gparted kernel instead of the other debian kernels which I have installed. They all error out with the same problem (waiting for root file system).

When booting the gparted kernel, I noticed it says "scsi0: pata_marvell" and "scsi1: pata_marvell", while debian doesn't, it says 'ahci'.

I'd really like to know what magic the gparted kernel does, so I can configure/include/compile it into another kernel, for which I will also have sound and source. I don't have sound and source code for the gparted kernel, and I need it to compile nvidia modules and such.

Here's an excerpt from dmesg:

(some usb messages, then this)

scsi0 : pata_marvell
scsi1 : pata_marvell
ata1: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0xdc00 ctl 0xd880 bmdma 0xd400 irq 16
ata2: PATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xd800 ctl 0xd480 bmdma 0xd408 irq 16
BAR5:00:02 01:7F 02:22 03:CA 04:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 08:00 09:00 0A:00 0B:00 0C:07 0D:00 0E:00 0F:00
ata1.00: HPA detected: current 488395055, native 488397168
ata1.00: ATA-7: ST3250620A, 3.AAF, max UDMA/100
ata1.00: 488395055 sectors, multi 0: LBA48
ata1.01: ATAPI: HL-DT-STDVD-RAM GSA-H55N, 1.02, max UDMA/66
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/100
ata1.01: configured for UDMA/66
BAR5:00:02 01:7F 02:22 03:CA 04:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 08:00 09:00 0A:00 0B:00 0C:07 0D:00 0E:00 0F:00
scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      ST3250620A       3.AA PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
scsi 0:0:1:0: CD-ROM            HL-DT-ST DVD-RAM GSA-H55N 1.02 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:05:01.0[A] -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
eth0: RealTek RTL8139 at 0xe800, 00:06:4f:01:64:61, IRQ 17
eth0:  Identified 8139 chip type 'RTL-8139C'
8139cp: 10/100 PCI Ethernet driver v1.3 (Mar 22, 2004)
ahci 0000:00:1f.2: version 3.0
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.2[b] -> GSI 19 (level, low) -> IRQ 21
ahci 0000:00:1f.2: AHCI 0001.0200 32 slots 6 ports 3 Gbps 0x3f impl SATA mode
ahci 0000:00:1f.2: flags: 64bit ncq sntf stag pm led clo pmp pio slum part
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1f.2 to 64
scsi2 : ahci
scsi3 : ahci
scsi4 : ahci
scsi5 : ahci
scsi6 : ahci
scsi7 : ahci
ata3: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xf9ffe800 port 0xf9ffe900 irq 219
ata4: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xf9ffe800 port 0xf9ffe980 irq 219
ata5: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xf9ffe800 port 0xf9ffea00 irq 219
ata6: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xf9ffe800 port 0xf9ffea80 irq 219
ata7: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xf9ffe800 port 0xf9ffeb00 irq 219
ata8: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xf9ffe800 port 0xf9ffeb80 irq 219
ata3: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
ata4: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
ata6: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
ata7: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
ata8: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
Driver 'sd' needs updating - please use bus_type methods
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 488395055 512-byte hardware sectors (250058 MB)
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 488395055 512-byte hardware sectors (250058 MB)
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
sda:<4>Driver 'sr' needs updating - please use bus_type methods
sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 48x/48x writer dvd-ram cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20
sr 0:0:1:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0
sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
sr 0:0:1:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 5
Probing IDE interface ide0...
Probing IDE interface ide1...

Thanks,
Mihai