While performing my "make menuconfig" I began to have problems.
My host began to disintegrate. Memory usage spiked, and the (Xfce)
panel vanished. I was able to exit from menuconfig cleanly, then the
system went down.

After the reboot: /mnt/lfs is still there
I'm poring back through the book, but have been unsuccessful in my
attempts to re-enter the chroot environment. This might have to do
with being frustrated, or out of coffee =)

The truth is, I'm not sure what to do to get back to where I was
before I was booted out. I'm close to finishing (my first LFS) and really
don't want to start over at this point.

Chapter 6. Installing basic system software

just after the beginning of Ch 6 is where you chroot.........don't forget to set your $LFS PATH before you chroot or you will get an error about /bin/bash env cannot be found....LOL!! AND dont forget to re-mount proc and devpts

6.6. Mounting the proc and devpts file systems

Thank you 320mb. I need one more hint though.
I'm afraid I may have done something(s) wrong.

Part of my problem is that I am not sure what information
to provide, while asking my question.

I have just logged in to my host system, as my every day user.
I can log in as user "lfs." I cannot "mount -t proc proc $LFS/proc"
as lfs or root. I am informed that /mnt/lfs/proc does not exist.

If have set $LFS. "echo $LFS" returns /mt/lfs

I have returned to the beginning of chapter 6, but know I
am missing a crucial step.

As /lfs/proc and /lfs/sys already exist, I don't want to
issue the "mkdir -p $LFS/{proc,sys}" again do I? And
what about...

mount -f -t ramfs ramfs $LFS/dev
mount -f -t tmpfs tmpfs $LFS/dev/shm
mount -f -t devpts -o gid=4,mode=620 devpts $LFS/dev/pts

does your everyday user have the permissions to access /mnt/lfs..........??.
( read/write/exec ) remember.......lfs/root are user/owner of this directory....you need to give your regular user the same permissions.......

<edit/> OH and the same goes for /mnt/lfs/tools
your regular user needs the same permissions to access that tools directory as the lfs user did........!!

I'm probably going to seem incredibly dense here, but I
don't think I accurately described my situation before. I
am in chapter 8. Everything is set up, but the kernel. It
was at this point that my machine went down.

I have the revised chroot pretty much memorized at this point.
users; me, lfs, and root all have the proper permissions set.
Echo $LFS returns /mnt/lfs.

I switch to root, head into my lfs file system. When I execute this
the revised chroot (as /tools no longer exists), the response that
I get is "bash: chroot: command not found"

edit: for some reason i have to now use /usr/sbin/chroot
so, now I get
"/usr/sbin/chroot: cannot run command `/usr/bin/env': No such file or directory"
a quick cd /usr/bin and there is env. hmmm. I have the feeling I am going to
feel silly when this is done.

edit2: odd that /usr/bin/env exists on both my host and in /lfs, yet I am being told
otherwise.

edit 3: Yep, I am slow. It is embarassing to admit, but just in case anyone else ever does
this I will record my mistake here. If you get booted or need to exit from not only the
chroot but have your machine crash - you must remount the partition, not just
parts of its file system. You can mount /proc and /sys all you want, but if the entire
contents of /mnt/lfs do not appear in /lfs you will get nowhere.

thanks for posting this, i think my brain crashed along with my box