Dell 8600 gdm startup problem

[Wendy Leigh Vandoolaeghe]

Hi
my laptop battery ran out of power whilst I was in X mode (using gdm not 
xdm). When I rebooted, it failed to start the Xserver. how can i fix the 
problem?

(am using XFree86 version 4.3.0.1(Debian 4.30.dfsg.1-4.2040529113443))

cheers
wendy