Problem in in booting up new recompiled kernel 2.4

[divisha]

I am new to linux kernel configuration. I was trying to configure and compile a new kernel 2.4.20. I followed the steps to reconfigure the kernel and the new kernel got compiled successfully. At boot time I could see my new kernel . All went right except when it comes to log in page. My keyboard and mouse were not responding. I could see the cursor blinking at the username space, but nothing was happening when I was giving input through keyboard or mouse.
I am writing the steps that I did to configure and compile the new kernel 2.4.20.

I am having Red Hat 9 kernel 2.4.20.
1)make clean.
2)make mrproper.
3)make menuconfig.( Made no changes but saved the setting as new configuration).
4)make dep.
5)Changed EXTRAVERSION
6)make bzImage.
7)make modules.
make modules_install
9)make install.

I saw the grub.conf was showing my new kernel.
there were modules related to my new kernel at /lib/modules directory.

I am not getting where I am wrong. Please help me regarding above problem.
Thanks

[mondomunchies]

I am new to this, but have you autoloaded any modules? Maybe you haven't autoloaded a module necessary for keyboard support at startup.

[Juan Pablo]

2)make mrproper.

It usually deletes the .config file but I believe it makes a backup

3)make menuconfig

If the configuration file is gone, you should select at least some options

[divisha]

After doing make mrproper , I did

[/usr/src/linux2.4#]cp /boot/config-2.4.20-8smp ./.config
[/usr/src/linux2.4#] make menuconfig


then I did make dep;make bzImage;make modules;make modules_install

when I did ' make install ', I am getting an error:" All of your loopback devices are in use " in mkinitrd.

I am not getting where I am wrong.
Thanks

[Juan Pablo]

You can also install the kernel manually copying it from /usr/src/linux/arch/<your-arch>/boot/bzImage to somewhere in /boot and then update the bootloader

[divisha]

I am not able to make "initial ram disk image" due to the error that I am getting when I do mkinitrd.
The error was:"All of your loopback devices are in use". Please help me to resolve this problem.

[divisha]

Now I got the solution to my problem.The Error that I was getting was due to lack of disk space for while making initial RAM disk image. I removed the useless initrd images, bzImages of previous recompilations , modules of unused kernel versions , etc which I felt are of no use. Then again I recompiled the kernel and everything went on smoothly.

Thanks a lot for the precious help