[dapper] boot stalls at "loading device drivers"

[Bjarne Wichmann Petersen]

Yesterday I did an upgrade (via the adept notifier), which included some 
kernel stuff.

Now, my computer have trouble booting. It fails at "Loading device drivers". 
After a couple of reboots/resets the computer boots.

Did the recent kernelupgrade introduce a bug? Can't find anything on launchpad 
or ubuntuforums.

Or is this just a freak accident that the upgrade coincided with some hardware 
going faulty?

Or was there a change in the kernelupgrade that triggered faulty hardware to 
fail?

Once booted, the computer runs just fine. As does the dapper/kubuntu livecd.

The question is, how do I figure out what makes the devicedriver loading fail?

Bjarne