Hello.
Please note: Occam's razor is often applicable to troubleshooting. I removed the CDROM, and the problem is no more. Simple device error - nothing more, nothing less. Apologies for taking bandwidth.
Following first a flood and then a power outage, a desktop Linux box running RHEL4 with kernel 2.6.9-5smp didn't boot properly. Booting in single-user mode, I note the following relevant lines in the/var/log/messages file:

kernel hda: status error: error 0x00
kernel hda: drive not ready for command
kernel hda: status error: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }

This is repeated, as you might guess. At some point in this loop, what appears between the "drive not ready for command" line and the "status 0x58" line is this:
kernel hda: ATAPI reset complete

Checking the /var/log/boot.log, I note the following:

lvm.static: /dev/cdrom 1seek 0 failed: Invalid argument
lvm.static: No volumes groups found

Downstream from this, the floppy isn't mounted (who cares), and then kudzu fails to recognize the KVM.

I modified the /etc/lvm/lvm.config to filter out the /dev/cdrom, but this was wildly unsuccessful.

I am not certain what to try next, though -- in reading other somewhat related posts -- I am guessing an answer is to upgrade the kernel. I appreciate any guidance that you are willing to provide.

Thank you.
Erin