All seems fine NOW, here's what happened:
Power came back on about 2 am, but I didn't check anything until about 8 am. When I saw the front circle lights on the display still going round & round after 6 hours, I knew something was wrong without even turning on the TV. I rebooted via the message on the screen (pushing enter rebooted) a few times & then tried a front panel button reset/reboot but still had the same screen message come up after a minute or so each time.
So while I researched the prices of new harddrives & posted the question here I left it unplugged, prolly an hour or so. To my suprise, when I plugged it back in it rebooted & went thru the start up just fine...been watching spongebob ever since (with 3 kids in the house I never get to watch what I want!)
Not sure what exactly happened, but all seems back to normal for now
my guess would be similar to a PC that isnt on a UPS and power drops. its a very ungraceful shutdown. you really need to add a good UPS to your A/V gear