Locked up boot after failed update

[Jim Cornette <fct-cornette insight rr com>]

After applying updates to the computer yesterday, I came back to the 
computer to check on the progress of the machine. X had a white box 
where the gnome-terminal was and the only other thing on the screen was 
the mouse. No panels, no text.
Since the ctl-alt sequence was not working due to the keyboard problem, 
I could not change to a VT so was stuck with killing the computer unclean.
Anyway, now I can only boot up to the unmounting old root and these 
prompts. How would you be able to pass these process and boot into a 
single user mode or maintenance mode? Single user failed the same way as 
other runlevels.

Jim