8.2 fails suddenly to boot - /etc/rc issues

Hi,

I run a SS10 headless with 8.2 - it worked up to the last poweroff. 
Now it comes up in single-user with no network.
Attaching a serial console I see:

kern.module.path=/stand/sparc/8.2/modules
/etc/rc.subr: uname: not found
/etc/rc.subr: uname: not found
/etc/rc: print_rc_metadata: not found
/etc/rc: print_rc_metadata: not found

and these two messages get repeated dozens of time. THe system comes 
up to the point where it asks for a shell?

Intervalled in these messges I see some other failures:

eval: handle_fsck_error: not found

random_seed: /var/db/entropy-file: Not present

route: writing to routing socket: Network is unreachable
add net default: gateway 192.168.1.254: Network is unreachable
eval: checkyesnox: not found


As far as I can remember, the system was last shut down cleanly, 
what's going wrong?

Riccardo