Error message then failure to boot up

Question

My daughter is in Florence, Italy, for a quarter abroad. Her PowerBook G4 15" (1.5 gigabytes, 5.2 MB, 80 gigabyte Combo BTAPX--sorry, I don't have the OS version) was running slow today, then displayed an error message after some time in sleep mode, as follows:
1st and 2nd lines (identical message):
/etc/master.passwd:no such file or directory
3rd line (the double hyphens here represent dashes):
--sh--2.05b# in6ifattachlinklocal:failed to configure a link--local address on lo0 (errno=55)
4th line:
in6_ifattach:lo0 failed to attach a linklocal address.
The Stanford Center sent her to a local computer guy who speaks English and knows Macs. He said he'd never seen anything quite like it, but when he put in the startup disk he was able to get a start screen. She is desperate not to lose the long paper (etc.) she had just finished, so he did not continue further as doing so would have reformatted her hard drive. She is under AppleCare, and she will go to the only AppleCare facility in Tuscany by train on Tuesday (they are closed on the weekend, and she can't miss Monday classes). Is there any hope, especially with regard to her data on the computer?
Thank you!!
PowerBook G4

Answer 1

Message from daughter in Italy:
Here's what happened. When I typed in the first line, the output was a TON of lines somewhat like this:
-rw-rw-r-- 1 0 80 12292 (a date, a time) (Firefox, Users, etc.)
drw------- 7 0 99 238 (a date, a time) (Volumes, afs, bin,etc.)
d-wx-wx-wt 2 0 80 68 (a date, a time) (var -> /private/var, etc)
drwxr-xr-x 1 0 80 649 (a date, a time) (Desktop Folder, private)
There were lots of lines that started with drwxr. Also, where I typed parentheses above, there weren't any parentheses (that's just to show where the date and time would be). And on the very last item, those things listed in parentheses (which were not on the code) include some samplings of what was listed there (but not necessarily corresponding to the previous code in the line that I typed -- I just wrote down some of the words I saw throughout). There was only one word at the end of each line (or sometimes something like the very two last lines, which were var -> /private/var and one other somewhat like it with the var.delete code.
When I typed in the second line of code suggested, there was nothing, just a new prompt (that same weird prompt with the pound sign).
When I typed in the third line of code suggested, the output was the following:
ls: /private/etc/: No such file or directory
Also, when I typed in the very first line of code, there was no weird prompt thing...just a blank line with the cursor blinking. The prompt thing always appears after you type in something and hit return.
Hope that all makes sense (at least to the Apple geniuses out there). Thank you!!