2.9 Upgrade failure question

[Mike Darweesh <jaromir@Radix.Net>]

I'm trying to upgrade a 2.8 installation to 2.9 (i386).
I'm using the boot floppy method of upgrade to a 80G IDE disk.
But, when the upgrade script gets to the fsck -pf, it fails:
Checking root filesystem...
Cannot alloc 38054402 bytes for lncntp.
CAN'T CHECK FILESYSTEM.
/dev/rwd0a: UNEXPECTED INCONSITENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY.
ERROR: Can't check root filesystem

As a potential workaround, I tried hitting ctrl-z earlier in the upgrade
script and then swapctl -a /dev/wd0b (an already existing swap partition),
then fg, and continue the upgrade. But, I get the same error.

Suggestions?
I'd prefer not to have to execute all the upgrade commands manually,
but that'd be my next workaround attempt.

-Mike