Installed gentoo til completion on vmware. when booting i get the following error:

-snip-
Block device /dev/sda2 is not a valid root device...
the root block device is unspecified or not detected.
please specify a device to boot, or 'shell' for a shell..
-snip-

I go to the shell and cannot seem to really do much. I am also new at the linux and could use a few pointers. I did run into an article (googled for it) and it mentioned running 'genkernel', which i dont believe is available at this shell level. My configuration is:

2 xeons with an adaptec scsi (windows xp).

thx for your help...