Hi,
I have the same problem, after a power failure,
when the system boots it freezes on "STARTING SYSTEM LOG".
I am by no means a guru and have re installed several times after this has happened, but I decided to try and resolve the problem this time, after searching these forums I have found your post.
so far I have managed to get the system to boot using the interactive startup
I get to this by pressing "I" when it tells me to ( well actually I just keep hitting I as the message comes and goes so quick I missed it the first few times)
then when I am asked if I want to start Syslog i choose No and then continue with the boot sequence.
The problem is when I reboot the system if I don't follow the above procedure the system will freeze at "STARTING SYSTEM LOGGER" again.
So after a bit more searching in the forums I discovered the the system log file is located in /var/log/messages~######, when I tried to edit this file my system freezes (Just like when it boots).
I think that the way to resolve this problem is to create a new syslog file (messages~######) and redirect system to read this file instead, but I'm not sure how to do this. (YET!)
I just came up with a few more ideas while I am writing this.