Notebook hangs on boot (CentOS)

Hello everyone. I have another bizarre Linux problem.

I've been using CentOS on my Sony notebook for some time without
problems. Recently it started hanging on boot, and I can't get past
it. I tried using interactive boot mode, and ran it that way one time,
and verified that the system was hanging where it thought it was. After
this I rebooted with the intention of skipping the offending step, and
though I hit the "i" key several times and it wouldn't go interactive
ever again, even though I tried it at least three times. Of course it
would eventually come to that same place and hang, locking up so hard I
had to cycle power.

It's apparently hanging in one of two places - I'm not sure which, since
it jumps from one screen to the other. It appears to be attempting to
start smartd, then it jumps to another screen (perhaps it's returning
from whcnce it came) where it's trying to enable the swap space.
Anyway, that's the point where it hangs up.

My theory: I've encountered a similar problem before, and somehow I
accidentally fixed it. It seemed to have to do with the peripherals,
even though the messages would be totally wrong if that's the case (but
that wouldn't be the first time a program's output has been misleading.
:-) ) To clarify the problem further: Most of the time I use it at a
port replicator which has a PS/2 mouse and keyboard attached. When
attached to this, the notebook still boots fine. But it does _not_ boot
when I take it off the port replicator, which I assume is because the
PS/2 keyboard is gone. Normally after I've moved it to or from the
replicator, kudzu will inform me that the PS/2 keyboard has either been
detected or has disappeared. At this point, I will tell it to remove
the keyboard if it's off the replicator - but for some bizarre reason,
if I tell kudzu to add the keyboard (rather than ignoring it) when I've
put it back on the replicator, it hangs. (Oddly enough, if I ignored
it, the keyboard would work anyway.) So I'm thinking I may have
accidentally told the kudzu to do the wrong thing, and now it's totally
hosed. (There seems to be a long standing problem with kudzu in
relation to peripherals, which I have encountered on more than one
distro. If you're unfortunate enough to make the wrong choice when
kudzu senses a hardware change, it may not see the hardware change next
time, as if you've unknowingly given it instructions it to ignore that
particular hardware for all eternity.)

SO - if the problem is actually keyboard-related, how do I clear kudzu's
configuration information so it'll correctly see the change next time?
(I also have Mandriva on this notebook; I could boot into that, then
mount the Centos partition, and hopefully find the offending
configuration file and edit or delete or move it.)

If not, (and I admit the situation isn't _exactly_ the same) has anybody
ever encountered a repeatable hang at this point (either when starting
smartd and/or initializing swap)? I should probably note that I've been
having a little flakiness with the drive - occasionally on a cold start
the drive will appear to be missing - but it's always back after cycling
power. I should also note that Mandriva uses the same swap partition as
Centos and it has _never_ hung when initializing the swap. (For reasons
I won't go into here, I prefer to use the Centos installation, and was
actually thinking of deleting the Mandriva install to make more space.)

Also, has anyone had trouble getting Linux to go into interactive boot
mode? Would anybody have any other suggestions for me to try?

Thanks!

Vaughn

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