No, its deffinatly there. Its the mount point for the partition. cd /www works.

Any one with any more thoughts? This one is driving me mad!

Well, there is a forced way.. Try
strace -o /tmp/apache.log -f httpd start
as root (or replace httpd start with your way to start Apache) and look in log for what www it looks for and why it is not a directory.

Thanks, i installed the strace, but it would appear not to like that comand!

[root@host tmp]# strace -o /tmp/apache.log -f httpd start
Usage: httpd [-D name] [-d directory] [-f file]
[-C "directive"] [-c "directive"]
[-k start|restart|graceful|stop]
[-v] [-V] [-h] [-l] [-L] [-t] [-S]
Options:
-D name : define a name for use in <IfDefine name> directives
-d directory : specify an alternate initial ServerRoot
-f file : specify an alternate ServerConfigFile
-C "directive" : process directive before reading config files
-c "directive" : process directive after reading config files
-e level : show startup errors of level (see LogLevel)
-E file : log startup errors to file
-v : show version number
-V : show compile settings
-h : list available command line options (this page)
-l : list compiled in modules
-L : list available configuration directives
-t -D DUMP_VHOSTS : show parsed settings (currently only vhost settings)
-S : a synonym for -t -D DUMP_VHOSTS
-t : run syntax check for config files

I had exactly the same problem, and finally a friend suggested that it's perhaps SELinux problem, and guess what, it was... Just type:

setenforce 0

and everything will get back to normal...
(of course without security benefits of SELinux, but I don't really need it, anyway..)

Oops, I forgot to mention '-k' key before start. It could be found from error message.. Or did 'setenforce 0' work?