shutdown hangs

Very weird. I can't get shutdown to work. I've tried "shutdown -h now", "shutdown -r now", and "reboot" and "poweroff", yet, here I am, posting to a newsgroup...?

All I could really think of was "ps -e", not sure how else to figure out what's going on. Nothing ominous pops out from "top", at least nothing taking up huge resources.

I have a USB headset which doesn't work under Linux, so I need to boot into win2k, preferably tonight, to make some calls.

Script started on Tue 13 Dec 2005 09:00:37 PM EST
[root@localhost ~]# ps -e
  PID TTY          TIME CMD
    1 ?        00:00:02 init
    2 ?        00:00:02 ksoftirqd/0
    3 ?        00:00:00 watchdog/0
    4 ?        00:00:01 events/0
    5 ?        00:00:00 khelper
    6 ?        00:00:00 kthread
    8 ?        00:00:00 kacpid
   82 ?        00:00:00 kblockd/0
  131 ?        00:00:10 pdflush
  132 ?        00:00:08 pdflush
  134 ?        00:00:00 aio/0
  133 ?        00:00:37 kswapd0
   85 ?        00:00:00 khubd
  221 ?        00:00:00 kseriod
  380 ?        00:00:00 kmirrord/0
  393 ?        00:00:35 kjournald
  885 ?        00:00:00 udevd
  967 ?        00:00:00 shpchpd_event
 1457 ?        00:00:00 kjournald
 1854 ?        00:00:00 dhclient
 1905 ?        00:00:00 syslogd
 1907 ?        00:00:00 klogd
 1924 ?        00:00:00 portmap
 1942 ?        00:00:00 rpc.statd
 1956 ?        00:00:00 auditd
 1960 ?        00:00:00 kauditd
 1984 ?        00:00:00 rpc.idmapd
 1997 ?        00:00:00 hcid
 2001 ?        00:00:00 sdpd
 2020 ?        00:00:00 krfcommd
 2145 ?        00:00:01 automount
 2194 ?        00:00:01 automount
 2206 ?        00:03:59 nifd
 2234 ?        00:00:00 mDNSResponder
 2243 ?        00:00:00 acpid
 2252 ?        00:00:00 cupsd
 2330 ?        00:00:00 sshd
 2343 ?        00:00:02 ntpd
 2361 ?        00:00:01 sendmail
 2367 ?        00:00:00 sendmail
 2376 ?        00:00:04 gpm
 2384 ?        00:00:00 crond
 2405 ?        00:00:01 xfs
 2420 ?        00:00:00 atd
 2428 ?        00:00:00 dbus-daemon
 2440 ?        00:00:00 cups-config-dae
 2449 ?        00:00:03 hald
 2455 ?        00:00:00 hald-addon-acpi
 2468 ?        00:00:19 hald-addon-stor
 2481 ?        00:00:00 login
 2484 ?        00:00:00 login
 2485 ?        00:00:00 login
 2995 ?        00:00:00 login
 3053 tty4     00:00:00 bash
 3267 ?        00:00:00 login
12039 ?        00:00:00 ssh-agent
12060 tty4     00:00:00 gconfd-2
17411 tty3     00:00:00 bash
17709 ?        00:00:00 login
17975 ?        00:00:00 ssh-agent
28985 ?        00:00:00 ssh-agent
31810 tty4     00:00:08 pine
 3955 ?        00:00:00 ssh-agent
 3976 ?        00:00:00 scsi_eh_4
 4034 ?        00:00:00 hald-addon-stor
 4062 tty4     00:00:00 umount
 6411 tty4     00:00:00 xffm
 6412 tty4     00:00:00 mount
 6415 tty4     00:00:00 xffm
 6416 tty4     00:00:00 mount
 6423 tty4     00:00:00 xffm
 6424 tty4     00:00:00 mount
 6504 ?        00:00:00 ssh-agent
 6521 tty4     00:00:00 xffm
 6522 tty4     00:00:00 mount
 6551 ?        00:00:00 shutdown
 6577 tty4     00:00:00 shutdown
 6581 tty1     00:00:00 bash
 6612 tty1     00:00:00 shutdown
 6618 tty2     00:00:00 bash
 7271 tty2     00:00:00 shutdown
 7276 tty5     00:00:00 bash
 7312 tty6     00:00:00 bash
 7349 tty5     00:00:05 pine
 7377 tty6     00:00:00 script
 7378 tty6     00:00:00 script
 7379 pts/1    00:00:00 bash
 7389 pts/1    00:00:00 ps
[root@localhost ~]# whoami
root
[root@localhost ~]# date
Tue Dec 13 21:00:44 EST 2005
[root@localhost ~]# exit
exit

Script done on Tue 13 Dec 2005 09:00:46 PM EST




thanks,

Thufir
.