On installed knoppix 3.1
System froze (keyboard, mouse) - I turned off machine.
Turned back on. System came up without kde. I logged in. Could not start kde. Tried to logoff.
Found shutdown command but couldnt get it to work. Turned off machine. Now when starting again (from recovery floppy or from harddrive) machine hangs on adding swap (which has been there all along).
What should I have done when the system froze?
How do I start kde if the system comes up without it?

I could reinstall now, but I'm concerned should this happen later after I've added a lot to the systme. ( I do back up /etc and /home but hadnt done that yet for this system)
Thanks for any help