Gentoo wont start up

I cannot get Gentoo to boot all the way up. It always gets to 
"Starting local . . .", runs whatever is in it, then
stops.  I tried removing the local.start file, but the
bootup process just stops at the point at which it would
be running local.start

This is really driving me insane.  I know I'm just an
inch or two from a login prompt.

I tried someone else's idea of adding "sleep 3" to the
local.start file, but it made no difference.

ANy ideas on what it is stuck on?  Since I can't
get as far as a login prompt, I cannot get in to
see the syslog.

I installed from stage3-i386-pentium2 for 1.4rc1
after booting from 1.2 cd ( since there is no PCMCIA
support on the 1.4 disk).  I am running (trying anyway)
Gentoo on a Dell Latitude P2/400 that is running
SuSE without any problems at all (seperate partition).

Pls help.

Thanks
-Jennifer