Boot problem last for the morning

[Bart Silverstrim]

I'm going to have to throw in the towel for the morning and move on 
until I can look at the issue later.

I can get into the machine via ssh still.  I ran a permission repair 
from diskutil, it repaired a handful of permissions and a reboot still 
didn't finish.

FSCK changed a file.  Running later kept reporting the disk was alright.

My next move is to try getting a 6-pin to 6-pin firewire cable, booting 
to firewire mode while connected to my wife's white Macbook, and trying 
to copy some data off the machine that I want to keep and just wipe and 
reinstall to my Macbook using the 10.3.x DVD in my wife's system (the 
drive on the black macbook won't read DVDs...think that laser is dead).

Anyone know a procedure or tips on reinstalling 10.3.x to a system using 
firewire disk mode?

Hints, advice, etc. would be appreciated.