[CentOS] Long time waiting on boot

I just installed Centos 5.1 with XEN on my HP nc2400 duo core and there 
are two problems out the starting gate:

Oh, I am booting off a 40Gb 2.5" drive on a USB adapter.  The internal 
hard drive is encrypted and not usable right now (until I get XEN 
figured out). But I don't think it has a bearing...

The system hangs for some reason at various points.

When first starting up graphic (you know, when the screen goes from 
character mode to graphic and you can then follow the boot by pressing 
<alt-D>.
When bringing up loopback
When bringing up eth0 (dhcp server very reachable)
When starting mcstransd (whatever that is)
When starting system message bus
When starting some bluetooth service (the first boot but not after the 
yum update)
When starting Avahi deamon (timeout out and failed during this long 
wait, I should turn that service off anyway)
When starting HAL (the first boot but not after the yum update)

Each hangup is a few minutes!  Then the system continues.  I did not see 
anything of note in /var/log

Second issue, the external video.


I cannot not turn it on.  This HP notebook does not offer any BIOD 
control of the external monitor.  There is a 'presentation' button right 
above the keyboard you are suppose to press to toggle the external 
video.  It does nothing.  Well I do hear the drive spinning so the 
system is trying something?  I should point out that my XP boot off the 
internal harddrive sometimes 'looses' the external video, and I have to 
go into display control and turn off then on the 'presentation' option.

This could work out GREAT if I can get a few more things working (and 
learn XEN to boot the XP in a window).