snow leopard ate my computer (mac book pro, core duo)

it froze during a routine system update (not critical) after installation.
everything was working fine in the few hours i had it on, but I had to do a hard reset after the freeze.
now it freezes on startup.
but it also won't boot into safe mode.
or off my external.
or off of the install dvd.

I've reset the pram/vram.
tried to clear volatile firmware.
safe mode, obviously.

I'm pretty backed up, but not perfectly so and kind of want that data.
Also, while I have a working totally clean booting leopard alternate HD taking this machine apart is not an option right now because all of my tools are at work, and I don't want to take the small torx screws out with any bullshit methods.

Any suggestions? It clearly wants to boot off the HD but also freezes on the circle after a few minutes.

otherwise it's all kernal panic gray screens, freezing, bullshit, bullshit.

my advice: wait to upgrade if your computer is fine.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ml242

it froze during a routine system update (not critical) after installation.
everything was working fine in the few hours i had it on, but I had to do a hard reset after the freeze.
now it freezes on startup.
but it also won't boot into safe mode.
or off my external.
or off of the install dvd.

I've reset the pram/vram.
tried to clear volatile firmware.
safe mode, obviously.

I'm pretty backed up, but not perfectly so and kind of want that data.
Also, while I have a working totally clean booting leopard alternate HD taking this machine apart is not an option right now because all of my tools are at work, and I don't want to take the small torx screws out with any bullshit methods.

Any suggestions? It clearly wants to boot off the HD but also freezes on the circle after a few minutes.

otherwise it's all kernal panic gray screens, freezing, bullshit, bullshit.

my advice: wait to upgrade if your computer is fine.

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Routine system update after installation? Huh? There haven't been any updates to SL yet. It's still at 10.6.0.

Go here...

forums.macnn.com

That's unpossible.

If you had a Time Machine drive, you could just do a clean install and retrieve everything.

That's what it's for.

You clearly have PC, because Mac just works.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Q-hKKJsMwv...ohnhodgman.jpg

it was a java driver from system update, about 6 megs and not critical.

how would time machine help me more than booting Leopard off a firewire drive, or booting off the dvd with CMND-CTRL-OPT-DEL?

Jongs.

"The Snow Leaopard " by Peter Mathieson was a good book , highly recommended ,I don't think him or G.S. Schalar actualy seen one ...and they were looking

Buy new hd, install new os, run time machine back-up. Kick self in ass for jumping on bandwagon and not waiting at least a month for the bugs to be worked out.

Good to know, was going to pull the trigger soon.

Use boot camp to boot in XP?

Me, I be waiting another month. I hate having broken software.

Funny... I use it daily on my MBP and have had zero issues.

Since we have all the Mac experts assembled. I tried to upgrade my 1.6MHz Powerbook G4 to 10.5.8 from 10.4.11. Everything seemed to work fine but anytime it tries to sleep I get the bomb dialog reboot box. Doesn't matter how sleep is invoked (timeout, close cover, Apple menu) Searched Apple support but couldn't find this one.

no issues with snow leopard here, although i was a little worried when i saw this thread.

Aren't there "geniuses" you can take your mac to get fixed free when it doesn't Just Work?

Props/Vibes to all you early adopters out there figuring this shit out while the rest of us wait to read about it in forums like this. I'm still running Panther on one of our work stations because it's been bomber, never crashes and runs smoothly.

none of these suggestions are going to work. i flashed the ram and it would not boot safe, or using the target disk as the primary drive. it is also probably unfair to blame snow leopard on the crash, but taxing the system did cause a short or some stress that killed some aspect of the hardware. maybe a freak occurrence, maybe not. but now i'm stuck with a 2000 pc until it's fixed. At least I paid only $29 to break my computer, longhorn is going to do people in way worse.

I don't think SL works with the latest java version, if you did a manual update after the SL upgrade. That's why SL "downgraded" the java version with the update. I think you are SOL until the first update where they hopefully fix that issue. If you can maybe try to downgrade back to an older version of java.

That's my best guess.

SL update worked well for me on 2 computers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ml242

At least I paid only $29 to break my computer, longhorn is going to do people in way worse.

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Vista=Longhorn



So much for mac reliability...

Do you have another Mac in the house?
You could pull the HD, put it in a separate (firewire) enclosure and reload it from your back up, then reinstall and try booting again?

If only you were using a computer for which there were better support tools than the power button...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by krp8128

Vista=Longhorn



So much for mac reliability...

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eh, windows 7 then.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jmf

If only you were using a computer for which there were better support tools than the power button...

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there are lots of tools. it's a unix syststem. the developer tools package is actually pretty impressive, and the terminal is way better than anything most people ever even sniff on a pc.

Alpen - first thing i did. it will not boot off any drive, primary or otherwise. it kernal paniced a couple of times and now it doesn't search for anything or chime.

I have a pretty good idea of things when it comes to computers, and this is the worst i've ever seen. it's basically a brick with a gray screen right now. I can't definitively blame SL yet, but like i said, i would wait.

something happened with that java update.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ml242

Alpen - first thing i did. it will not boot off any drive, primary or otherwise. it kernal paniced a couple of times and now it doesn't search for anything or chime.

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No, I didn't mean, boot from an external...
I meant, yank the drive, hook it up to another mac zero it out and reload via SuperDuper (if you have a mirror copy of the drive).
Or is that what you meant.

Good luck, sorry to hear.
You know shits flowing down hill pretty fast when your mac will no longer recognize it's drive.

yeah i am not going to have a chance to swap the drive because it takes me about an hour to crack it and put it back, and i'm sick of thinking of new ways to open up those retarded size 5 torx screws.

Does Apple still provide a separate "hardware test" CD/DVD with their computers, in addition to the install DVD? If so, did you try booting off that?