redhat 8 booting problem: Message=dropping to shell command

Hi all,

Having problems booting RH8, after creating a logical volume. Bootup goes normally till it gets to displaying message = dropping you to a shell command.

The system already had working lv's, that were visible with df -h. They remained mounted after rebooting. Appropriate entries for them were found in /etc/fstab.

Below is what was attempted:

1. LV created & formatted with mke2fs -j /dev/vg1/varlv

2. Mounted: mount /dev/vg1/varlv /var

3. Checked: df -h. Seen to be mounted.

4. After reboot, did, df -h Not mounted now.

5. edited /etc/fstab to include the line for /dev/vg1/varlv:

/dev/vg1/varlv /var ext3 defaults 1 2

6. Rebooted:
Got to the point in bootup where message = dropping you to a shell command.

7. Typed root password and hit enter.

8. Repeated message: Init d:x respawning too fast, disabling for 5 mins.

I can see the message=dropping you to a shell command appears in rc.sysinit. I understand that ext3 is handled by initrd ram disk.

Help much appreciated

thanks
abs.