Linux booting problems

[Kenny Donahue]

Ok.... deeep breath. I'm ready to though
Linux out.  I've been fighting with a Linux kernel
build for a while now. I'm getting very angry.
I can load a Redhat 7.2 distribution and everything
works.  I need to patch the kernel for a project at
work. so, I do my patch (../fs/proc/base.c if it makes a
difference) then....
make mrproper
make xconfig
    add my scsi driver into the kernel
    add ext3 into the kernel
make dep
make bzImage
make modules_install
make install
edit lilo.conf
run lilo
reboot

ext3 comes up then it try's to load the ext3 module.
it fails with undefined symbols in jdb.o and ext3.o.
Why is it trying to load modules that are suposed to be
in the kernel!!!!  I looked in /lib/modules/linux-2.4.7-10custom/....
and these modules DONT EXIST!!!
What is going on.
Please keep me from hating Linux.
Thanks,
Kenny