Re installed the developer 2.0 image and was able to get a bash prompt. Tried

ro
umount /dev/hda4 (Please note! The command is umount, not unmount.)
umount /dev/hdc4 (If you have only one hard disk, you may omit the lines that include /dev/hdc4.)
swapon /swapfile
fsck -fay /
fsck -fay /dev/hda4
fsck -fay /dev/hdc4
swapoff /swapfile
sync

and

ro
rom
fsck.ext2 -fay -b 32768 /dev/hda4

and

rwm (There will be a long pause)
rm /drive0/var/database
rm /drive0/var/database3
rm /drive0/var/tags
rm /drive0/var/playlists
rm /drive1/var/database
rm /drive1/var/database3
rm /drive1/var/tags
rm /drive1/var/playlists
(Note that some or all of those RM commands may not work, that's OK)
exit
(The player application will run and rebuild the databases; watch the screen and wait until it is done, then q out of it again...)
q
(This should exit the player application back to the shell prompt.)
rom
exit


But it still boots up to

Building music database

And sits there.