Any way to capture messages on a failed boot?

["Thomas Mueller" <mueller6725%twc.com@localhost>]

Is there any way to capture messages from a failed boot?

I see /var/run/dmesg.boot was not created.

In this case, I was trying to boot a kernel from 7.99.71, saw a message about nine hardware detection errors, see syslog, but no such file is found, at least not a new version.

Maybe something not compatible with my motherboard, such as happened with NetBSD 5.0 and 5.1, now long past end of life. 

I didn't see anything relating to this problem on this emailing list, so I suspect something not compatible with my MSI Intel-compatible motherboard.

All I can see now is wait a few months as I update my FreeBSD installations, and then I might be too busy to get back to NetBSD updates.

If I could see those messages that came before what showed with Scroll Lock and Page Up, I'd have a better information.  I'd know better what devices to disable with userconf.

Booting NetBSD 7.99.71 custom kernel hung after getting most of the way through dmesg stuff, while generic kernel rebooted immediately with no messages at all. This was true for both i386 and amd64.

Tom