Kernel 3.5-rc5 cannot boot my PC - partitions parsing issues

Hello,

I took my Linux 3.3 configuration, made oldconfig on top of it, removed a few unneeded options and now Linux kernel 3.5-rc6 doesn't boot:

VFS: Cannot open root device "sda2" or unknown-block(0,0): error -6 Please append a correct "root=" boot option; here are the available partitions:
<EMPTY LIST>

Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)

I haven't changed anything in regard to the storage subsystem or block device support, I even explicitly enabled:

CONFIG_PARTITION_ADVANCED=y
CONFIG_MSDOS_PARTITION=y

to no avail.

I've posted the relevant information here: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=44771

Please advise.