Give me a bit, or try one of the other methods
Whenever you can get to it is fine, Adran. I appreciate any help from the experienced folks here!
I went back to the beginning, even downloaded a new copy of Pikafix archive, and used Method 1 this time as well as everything I've learned from Simplemememanyskills guide as well as the guide in this post.
Every step worked fine, all results and messages were as expected, no errors. Used the patches.ini file mentioned in a previous post and copied the .ini contents from the Boot section of this guide.
And unfortunately still no boot. I see the Hekate ipl flash screen then black screen. No Nintendo flash screen, just a black screen. I even let it sit here while typing this up, about 5 minutes so far, and then tapped the power switch - it was on but still black - had to hold the power switch for 10 seconds then tapped it and it auto-rcm'd and loaded hekate from my dongle again.
Any ideas or direction would be much appreciated. All i know about the switch is it had an SXOS dongle on it when i bought it but no SD card, and the seller had used pictures of it booted into SXOS as part of the sale.
Thanks in advance!
Dave