Problem with newly compiled kernel 2.6.39 (initrd.img not being created)

My platform is Intel 32 bit. I am using kernel 2.6.35-22 generic for these steps and the newly compiled kernel is 2.6.39 Here's my steps: $make defconfig $make -j2 CC="ccache gcc" $make modules #make modules_install #make install #update-grub After these sequence of steps, I tried to boot into the new kernel and there was nothing (except for the blinking caps lock) .So I checked and there was no initrd.img in /boot. So I tried using mkinitranfs and it created the ramdisk and then I booted but still it won't work. Though I can boot into recovery mode but the shell prompt is strange like (initramfs)...