Custom Kernel Creates Read Only Filesystem Issues

Hi,

I am building a HA postgres cluster using ubuntu 12.04 and DRBD.

When I boot a custom kernel using the following menu.lst the entire filesystem is mounted read only.

timeout 10

title        Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
root        (hd0)
kernel        /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-37-virtual root=/dev/xvda ro quiet
initrd        /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-37-virtual

Can I simply remove the ro from the kernel line to solve this? Is there a better way?

Cheers,

A