mounting new larger /var partition disables system logger

[David Barnsdale]

Problem

When I boot up FC3 logs fail to start 
It outputs the message:
Starting system logger [FAILED]

Probable cause:

Apt needed a larger /var partition so 
1) I rebooted as FC2
2) created a new partition with  parted:
  mkpart logical <start> <end>
3)used mkfs to make it an ext3 partition
4)used e2label to set the label
5)copied the contents of the old /var to the new:
rsync -av <source> <dest>

Initially I changed the label of  the /var partition
in fstab to the new label I'd given the new var partition.
  I've tried changing fstab back to how
it was and changing the label of the new /var partition 
but this had no effect.

if I run mount -l I get this for the partition:

/dev/hda14 on /var type ext3 (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) [/var]

the logger for mysql works fine

Could the problem be that I ran rsync under
FC2?

Thanks in advance for any pointers.

David