On start up my system hangs when it comes to "starting sendmail:" I have not changed anything or downloaded anything and am not sure why this is happening.  I am new to Linux so I am sorry if this is a stupid question but I don't know what to do.

Hey, you can always remove sendmail from your startup, then look for clues as to why it's hanging.

Boot from CD or floppy or similar...then

You need to be root, then change to /etc/init.d execute insserv -r sendmail

then reboot (or init 1, then init 5), Hey Presto!!

You can then examine your system for problems before re-activating sendmail by becomming root, change to /etc/init.d
execute insserv sendmail and see if it starts.

Also, look in the boot.msg log for clues (as root cat/var/log/boot.msg|less)

Give it a go

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