Help! PowerBook G4 crashed on sleep, won't start after forced shutdown.

Question

Urgent call for help: After I downloaded a RealPlayer update today, I neglected to run Disk Utility permissions repair. A little later I left my G4 PowerBook running for a few hours and when I came back and tried to wake it up, it wouldn't come out of sleep mode (white light was pulsing).
I held down the Power button for about 20 seconds but nothing happened, so I removed the battery, which also didn't force a shutdown (white light still on). Finally, after the battery had been out for 5 minutes, I replaced it, plugged the computer in again, and held the Power button down, and it finally shut down (white light went off after about 15 seconds).
I then tried to restart the computer by pressing the Power button, but now nothing at all happens--no chime; it doesn't even go to a gray or blue screen. I've searched Discussions and found a post from "Maxit" suggesting a reboot from the Install disk to someone whose screen went as far as blue and what to do after that to prevent the problem in the future, but since the computer won't draw power, I can't insert the Install disk. (I've copied Maxit's fix below.)
Is there anything I can do to get the computer at least to the point where I can reboot from the Install disk--besides wait until AppleCare and/or my local repairman wakes up on Monday morning? Thanks for any suggestions!
Maxit's fix:
Posted: Apr 28, 2006 7:17 PM in response to: Jimmcangolf
First thing I would do is to restart from the 10.3 installation Disk and rather than proceeding with the installation, go to the menu bar, find Disk Utility, open it and run "Repair." If errors show up, run again.
Then, I would boot into Safe Mode (which forces a directory repair). See this KB article:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107393
This will take longer than a normal restart. Once booted, go into Disk Utility on the drive and repair permissions, then restart. Were this not to resolve your issue, then I would suggest doing an "Archive and Reinstall" of 10.3:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107120
Then update the software to 10.3.9 (be sure to repair permissions after the update).
Powerbook G4   Mac OS X (10.3.9)   15"

Answer 1

Yes, the sleep light stayed on until I was finally able to force a shutdown by removing the battery for a time, putting it back, and holding down the power button.
You've asked a good question: I don't know why it didn't go black as soon as I took the battery out, or why I had to hold down the power button for almost 30 seconds before it finally did.
Maybe when the battery is drained to 1%--which is what the indicator said when I finally realized what had happened and plugged it back in--its reserves are so low that it doesn't have the wherewithal to turn itself off. Or maybe after 5 hours of hibernation it was cranky when I tried to wake it up. . Do you know why it wouldn't respond as expected as soon as the battery was removed or the power button held down?