Brian May <brian@microcomaustralia.com.au> wrote:
It is possible when mounting filesystems I missed an important step that is required to load the firmware properly (maybe the step that causes the hangs?). However at this point, with the network up, I can continue booting fine.
Any ideas? How can I find out what is causing the hang?
Watch the boot messages, modifying your boot loader's configuration to ensure that they are displayed if this is not the case by default.
Is there anyway of creating another virtual console within recovery mode?
If you mean single user mode, then yes, you can run, e.g., /sbin/getty 38400 tty2 (note that /sbin would normally be in your $PATH thus strictly needn't be specified as above). Then you should be able to type alt-f2 to switch to that console and get a login prompt. If you have the openvt command then openvt -c 2 bash should work too, and obviously you can substitue any virtual console number for 2 in the above example. After that, leave single user mode and you should be able to switch at will to other consoles to run ps or whatever you have in mind.