Hang at boot: Compaq Presario 800

[Bob Dedrick <bd914 yahoo com>]

I'm having problems booting the Core 1 system I've
installed on a Compaq Presario 800 notebook.  At boot
time, the last few messages prior to the system
hanging are:

Creating block devices
Creating root device
Mounting root filesystem
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode
Freeing unused kernel memory: 136k freed

The power switch is the only thing the system listens
to at this point.

I'm also unable to boot from the installation CD-ROM,
which hangs after the message "hda: attached ide-disk
driver."  However, I was able to boot from floppy, and
install from CD, with no problems.

Debugging is complicated by the fact that "linux
rescue" after booting from floppy doesn't seem to work
(I end up in the install program regardless).

I have a bit of Linux experience, but right now I'm
stuck.  Any suggestions on debugging this?


=====
-- 
Bob Dedrick (bd914 yahoo com)
Hartsdale, NY

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