Doug. Your suggestion of having a small installation on the machine is a good one, and it probably would work. However, this assumes you already know what the problem is that needs fixed. Without having access to the actual boot messages (not just the ones you see while booting into your sandbox as it were) you'll never be able to solve any major problems that crop up in regards to the main system. it is however, not a bad idea, since it would allow some degree of free usage w/o sighted assistance on simple fixes. it wouldn't address the main issue though. And, in any case, it's functionally equivalent to the original suggestion of using a live cd to boot and work on fixing the issues from there.
