Boot hangs during "starting system log"

[milos]

Hi, community :)

My server with Debian Eltch has been working non-stop for last six months, without any problems. I had made no software installation during this period, except a 2-3 updates.
Last night server slowed down extremely and finally it was unavailable. After the restart, the system hangs on "Starting system log..."
I'm not at the server, i'm about 2000km away, so i can now only login through rescue system (network boot). I have only hardware support and the tech guys said today that everything is ok with hardware...

When i login through the rescue system, i can access all the data on disk, but i can't get it to reboot...

What can i do now? I have no idea :(

Thanks,
Milos

[falko]

Mount your partitions while you're in the rescue system (e.g. to /mnt), then chroot to /mnt, and take a look at the output of dmesg and the logs in the /var/log directory.

Before you mount your partitions, you can check them for file system errors with fsck (fsck.ext3, etc.).

[milos]

Before you mount your partitions, you can check them for file system errors with fsck (fsck.ext3, etc.).
Thanks, i owe you a beer! :)

Now that the problem is solved, can you tell me what might be the cause for this?

Thanks again!

[falko]

Now that the problem is solved, can you tell me what might be the cause for this?

There are a million possible reasons... ;)

[milos]

Hehe... Thanks anyway :)