freebsd 4.8-STABLE hangs on boot with no error message

[Neil Brown]

Hi,

I'm running freebsd 4.8-STABLE, I installed it a
little while ago and it has been running fine as my
broadband router for a few weeks now, no problems.

This morning there was a powercut, and when I came to
the machine and attached a monitor, I discovered that
it was making it through the BIOS, getting to the
spinning -\|/-\|/ prompt, where it freezes on the
first | every time.

If I press enter quick enough at the right moment I
can get the boot prompt, but then the | appears and it
freezes.  I can still turn numlock on and off (a sign
I've gone by for years that the PC hasn't totally
locked...) and ctrl-alt-del still reboots but it's
clear that the machine is not going anywhere further.

I can chuck a CD drive in and boot from the freebsd
install disk or knoppix or whatever will help me, does
anyone have any idea as to how I can fix it or what
log file I should examine etc?

Any help much appreciated,

Neil.

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