I don't think that JC is still waiting for an answer, but for all those people coming here via Google and having the same problem: the kernel _is not_ able to understand UUIDs. Some (mostly Debian-based) distributions offer this via their initramfs (that's kinda initrd v2.0): the initramfs contains userspace tools, including vol_id from udev, and use this to convert UUIDs into device names like hdXY.
To sum it up: either use your old initramfs that the stock kernel was using, or don't use UUIDs.
Re: Switching to Libata drivers
I don't think that JC is still waiting for an answer, but for all those people coming here via Google and having the same problem: the kernel _is not_ able to understand UUIDs. Some (mostly Debian-based) distributions offer this via their initramfs (that's kinda initrd v2.0): the initramfs contains userspace tools, including vol_id from udev, and use this to convert UUIDs into device names like hdXY.
To sum it up: either use your old initramfs that the stock kernel was using, or don't use UUIDs.