F17 recalcitrant X server

[Beartooth]

	My wife's machine downstairs (built for us by a friend who speaks 
hardware; I do not) has been hitting the Diagonal Screen of Death (DSoD); 
it brings up the login screen with both our names, and lets you choose 
one. You type in userid and password, and whammo : DSoD.

	In that condition it does however let me login over ssh and 
become root. I did so, ran yum update (no trouble with that), and did a 
reboot. No joy. 

	I tried startx.

[root at Msgv2 ~]# startx
xauth:  file /root/.serverauth.1267 does not exist
	[....]
Fatal server error:
xf86OpenConsole: VT_ACTIVATE failed: No such device or address

	It referred me to wiki.x.org, where I found only discussions well 
over my head. But the directions there recommended trying to configure, 
and I tried : 

[root at Msgv2 log]# X -configure

Fatal server error:
Server is already active for display 0
If this server is no longer running, remove /tmp/.X0-lock
and start again.

It said : 

Please also check the log file at "/var/log/Xorg.1.log" for additional 
information.

	I did that : 

[root at Msgv2 tmp]# rm .X0-lock
rm: remove regular file `.X0-lock'? y
[root at Msgv2 tmp]# cd
[root at Msgv2 ~]# X -configure
_XSERVTransSocketUNIXCreateListener: ...SocketCreateListener() failed
_XSERVTransMakeAllCOTSServerListeners: server already running

	At this point, it looks to me like a catch-22 -- wie man's auch 
macht, is' es verkehrt.

	Can anybody spare me a clue?

-- 
Beartooth Staffwright, Neo-Redneck Not Quite Clueless Power User
Remember I have precious (very precious!) little idea where up is.