> total memory = 1024 MB

Memory's cheap. It'll take 2 gigs, you know.

> But there is a problem, it doesn't write the dmesg from a 4 kernel boot.
> In fact, everything from the dmesg is gone. It fails shortly after there
> is alot of video info, when it starts to config PCI things I think.
> getting an interrupt, that it says is wrong.  Unfortunately, it happens so
> fast that I can't completely read it.

Is it safe to assume that you can use the serial console? That would skip 
the video problem, and you can obviously copy and paste from the machine 
that's connected to the serial.

> I think that the kernel that Andy has built for me was current. Could you
> build a kernel on one of your servers that has an older NetBSD 4 source?
> Maybe the problem is very recent. The kernel will need to have wd0a for
> root and filesystem ffs. If this works, then I can get this server to the
> colo hopefully before one of the drives in lisa fails completely.

Sure. I've built two. The first is netbsd-4 with root set to wd0a:

http://www.ziaspace.com/~john/XSERVE

The second is also from netbsd-4 with root set to wd0a, but with the 
Radeon stuff commented out:

http://www.ziaspace.com/~john/XSERVE_noradeon

Good luck,
John