Wow! Couldn't I just flip a switch er somthing?
I only get to visit these machines one day each week, therefore it might be a while before I get this worked out, so anything that springs to mind is welcome. Thanks a lot for the suggestion.
It sounds like console access is going to be required - at least for the reboot into single user, no?
If I follow the instructions, will that kill the console port access?
I checked in /dev and there is no "fb" there, as was reported by the X error message.