I have (not fully tested) patch to make mkinitramfs generate the image for non-lvm cciss-based root too. Previous patch only fixes situation with root on lvm-on-cciss_partition.
I have not tested the image, generated by patched mkinitramfs, but I am sure, it was generated without error. Somebody else should try boot it.
--- /usr/share/initramfs-tools/hook-functions~ 2008-12-10 15:38:23.000000000 +0400 +++ /usr/share/initramfs-tools/hook-functions 2008-12-10 15:44:32.000000000 +0400 @@ -275,10 +275,6 @@ root=${root#/dev/} block=$(awk "/^${root}/{print substr(\$5, 1, 3); exit}" \ /proc/mdstat) + # cciss naming scheme + elif [ "${root#/dev/cciss/}" != "${root}" ]; then + block="${root#/dev/cciss/}" + block="cciss!${block%p[0-9]*}" # classical root device else block=${root#/dev/}