I think I'm making progress unbricking my old MacMini, and without needing to format the HD either. HUZZAH!
Still got some work left to do, but at least it'll keep me busy until Serious Frivolty is back on air.
Also, I pulled a total MacGuyver cracking open my MacMini as well. All it took was a knife and a couple coins.
EDIT:
Since I finally have it working on repairing the Mac HD right now, lemme explain what's gone down so far.
I got my mac returned, and it was essentially bricked. When my sister gave it to me, she said it wouldn't even turn on. After doing an initial air-blasting, I got it to power on. It didn't like to finish booting up however. First thing I did was I gathered a few materials for me to use to crack this thing open. Watch a video on how to do it, and try to do it with a completely different set of materials because you lack their instructed ones. Instead of a razor and putty blades to unlock the hooks (that are locked from the inside; :shakes fist: APPLE!), I almost gave up until I decided to use a razor on the back side, expand the gap further with a kitchen knife (steak knife), then progress to dines, then nickels, then quarters, then eventually scissor-pry the case off of itself. Even my initial dusting wasn't sufficient. This thing was dirty to the core. I made sure to clean it up the rest of the way before tinkering with it.
I did a bit of searching around for solutions, found a startup-key legend, and tried every combination I would think could get me a result other than an apple screen of death. I finally found the right one that granted me a menu. I first did a hardware diagnostic, and like when I looked inside it, nothing burned out, and everything is working fine. I then booted up my install Cd and I finally got something other than the apple logo of death. Now I'm working on debugging or repairing the disks, or reinstalling OSX and see if I can get this thing operational again sans formatting disks.
God-willing, I will get this thing fixed.
EDIT EDIT:
Also watching Human Planet. Looks interesting.