ubuntu hangs after 'INIT: entering runlevel 2...'

[Bruno Buys]

Hi all,
I need to fix this ubuntu LTS dapper, which can't resume booting up to 
X. Instead, it hangs at 'INIT: entering runlevel 2...'. Nothing else 
happens until I hit ctrl-alt-del and get a root@(none): prompt.
In the first time I ran fsck /dev/hda2 and /dev/hda3. hda2, which 
happens to be the root fs, had a lot of fixes, which fsck performed 
interactively with me hitting a (big) number of 'yes'. Then I thought 
the problem was over, but after reboot, ubuntu hanged again in the very 
same step. So, I think there are some system files missing from it, 
which couldn't be recovered by fsck.
In respect to configs, the machine is quite standard, kernel 2.6.17-k7 
if I recall well. Its very possible that people at the office - where 
the machine lives - have not turned it on and off correctly for some 
time, which explains the fs errors (fs is ext3, btw). That's all I 
remember about it.
Can someone can suggest something?


thanks!


Bruno