mandrake linux booting problems

hi,
I think I have badly messed up my mandrake linux kernel. I would like ot retrive the files stored there since ihavent taken a back in sometime. Please Help!
I was trying to get madwifi to install the required driver for my atheros wireless card

http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/Distro/Mandrake
Here is hte page I was looking at
and this is what I did
* urpmi gcc cvs sharutils
* cd /usr/src/linux
* make clean; make xconfig

and simply save the file upon entry to .config (the default) and quit, then

* make KERNELRELEASE=$(uname -r) MODULEPATH=/lib/modules/$(uname -r)
* make modules KERNELRELEASE=$(uname -r) MODULEPATH=/lib/modules/$(uname -r)
I think my kernel was 2.6.8.1-12mdk or something like that!

Anyway, my computer has a windows and linux partition. When I boot the computer it refuses to boot linux, also I have an extra option there now saying 268-12 or something like that!

Is all my linux lost now? Is there anyway I can retrieve my files and stuff?
Thanks a lot and hope you are having a good new year (unlike me obviously!)

what may have happened (I say may, as it's been a long time since I played with kernels and I'm not a mandrake user) is that when you compiled your new kernel, as part of the compile script, it added the new kernel as an option to your bootloader. (an aside: you can have a whole raft of kernels sitting in your /boot folder, and boot from the one you wish)

So, have you tried booting from the new menu option?

When you say it doesn't boot, what do you get on the screen?

Nerderello

So I booted from both options. The default linux boot and the new kernel option.
It pretends to do something, then restarts itself :(
So nothing really happens, it doesn't seem to get to booting linux at all.
On the other hand hte windows boots fine, which is why I can write these mesgs!
What do you suggest I try?
Thanks.
rekha