Well I just solved it. I compiled the 2.4-test9 kernel with reiser patches on a different machine and wrote the image to a floppy using make bzdisk and then used that disk as my boot disk. This let me mount my reiser file systems. Then I backed up /boot, unmounted it and made it ext2 again. Copied things back and everything works great now.
Thanks for all your help Pascal -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]