Closing the loop, with reiterated thanks to all who offered such cogent suggestions, to aid an olde problem-confronter (solver, comes later!).
- Holding down the mouse button FINALLY got the tray open. NO! there's no pinhole, beside or inside the flap on the Igloo.
- However, booting from the original Install Disk AND, later, the proper DiskWarrior disk, did nothing BUT bring-up a multi-dimensional kernel panic (repeatedly). Spent most of the evening looking for some solution. "Multi-dimensional" = the 4-language warning, plus some Console-like overprinting, with no active prompt available. Think: "rock-and-a-hard-place"!
- One week later (last evening) I was back at the task with another hypothesis that had been suggested: use Target Disk Mode to access the disk, for transferring the remaining important files to her iMacIntel, the actual goal from the very beginning of this saga. Then, do the clean-up maintenance.
- The Igloo's drive, however, seemed to me last week it was probably too screwed-up to do anything. WRONG!
- TDM worked like a charm. My daughter's remaining files (including >4500 photos) were safely moved to the Intel and then safely backed-up after a thorough DiskWarrior-ing
- It now appears that the problem was that the Igloo's internal drive had been over-stuffed, i.e. < 8% free space. She's learned a valuable lesson,
and I've had my faith in TeeEssers reinforced for the Nth time.
One other factoid: I discovered – after finally getting inside – that she was running 10.4.11 on the Igloo.
I do thank everyone who pitched-in, here and on the phone.
I'm still surprised that TDM worked in such circumstances. Everything's now sailing along splendidly, now: Igloo, Intel and the the AEBS net.
