[ale] Can't mount root

[chrish at gstv.gsu.edu (Christopher Hamilton)]

i have a dos/linux pc

All of a sudden I get kernel PANIC error. not a valid super block.
now, when I try to boot, it spits all this info about MS-DOS (which
it didn't before), says that it cant mount root, not a valid superblock.

i boot from floppy and try to mount /dev/hda3 (linux native) to /mnt
but it says that it doesn't have a valid superbock.

anyone see this before?
help? 

Chris