Problem booting a laptop with RH-7.0

[mavillez amnh org]

Dear All,

I have a laptop running RH-7.0. during the boot process the machine
hangs after the line

  "Configuring kernel parameters"

 to continue booting the machine I have to press ctrl + \, which then
gives me a message

   "/etc/rc.sysinit: line 102:        23 Quit          /sbin/hwclock
$CLOCKFLAGS

After this the machine boots nicely, but the time is skewed to 5 hours
earlier than the time in the machine's setup.

The machine has the timezone set up properly. And the machine's Setup
time is correct.

Any suggestions?

thanks

Miguel