Not Enough Hard Drive Space on my Mac Mini to Save Deleted User Account Folder: What to do?

Question

I am no longer able to access my original user account on my mac mini because the account is corrupted and won't load. Thanks to the helpful advice I found on the internet, I was able to create a new user account and resume using my mac, but all of my old files are trapped in the old user account.
The plan was to delete the old user account, create a disk image of the old account folders, and then migrate those folders to the new user account. Unfortunately, I don't have enough disc space left on my Mac to do that. I have just under 11gb left after deleting absolutely everything I could, and I need 81gb for the old user files. The back up plan was to select the "don't change the home folder" option, but when I went to delete the account, there was no such option. The message simply read:
"The user's home folder will not be saved. To do so, you need 81.1gb of free disk space. Try emptying the trash or deleting other files on your disk, then deleting the user account. If you do not want to save the user's home folder, click delete immediately."
My only two choices were CANCEL or DELETE IMMEDIATELY. There was no "don't change the home folder" option.
So I am not sure how to proceed. Here are some questions:
1) is there a way to save the disk image directly to an external drive instead of the user's folder on the mac hard drive?
2) If I use the "delete immediately" option, will the files go into a "deleted users" folder where they can be recovered or will they just be erased from the computer and unretrievable?
3) Is there a way to use terminal to change access permission on the original user account files so that I can copy them onto an external drive or integrate them with the new user account without having to first delete the original user account?
4) In the absence of deleting the user account, will using either:
sudo chown -R `id -un` /Users/oldusername
and/or
sudo chmod -R u+rw /Users/oldusername
in Terminal allow the new user account permission to access the original user files and merge them seamlessly into my new user account? Or must I delete the original account first?
5) Is there something else I haven't thought of that would work, would be more efficient, or more effective? This wouldn't be the first time I have overthought a solution...
When considering any solutions, please keep in mind that I cannot launch the original user account as that starts the whole endless loading loop. So, while I have the password for the original user account, any solution would appear to require that I work from the new user account only, without launching the old account.  Also I am a complete newbie at this. I've used Macs exclusively for 17 years but this is the first time I've had to do anything like this. Up to now, everything has always "just worked".  So please be as detailed with any instructions as possible!
Any help greatly appreciated.  Thanks!
Mac Mini 2ghz 1g ram running OS 10.4.11

Answer 1

I think ComputerFixer is correct, you should be able to drag and drop it to another drive, no worries. However, if not, you could create an disk image of it using DiskUtility and create it on a new drive. But again, I don't think that is necessary. If you have administrator rights with your new account, can you simply go into the old user account folder and drag and drop the files you want to save? I have done that as well as copy the older user account to another drive (in my case, another computer on the network) and salgage my files from there. Is that an option for you?