Macbook will not login & Safe mode does not work

[lucanedark]

I am using an intel Macbook with Tiger 10.4 OSX.

I was installing the MacOSXUpd10.4.11Intel.dmg patch when I lost internet connection, and the installation went screwy. My computer crashed and I manually shut it down. When I turn it on it gets stuck at the grey screen with the apple and swirling loading circle.

I can not enter safe mode.

When I went to fsck I got the following error:

load of /sbin/launchd, errno 88 and load of /sbin/launchd failed, errno 88

Disk utility repair and verification does nothing to solve the problem.

I am now trying to re-install the update via the terminal. I put it on a USB drive and am attempting to open it from the terminal. I have mounted the "Mac OS X 10.4.11 Update (Intel)" but I can not access the .pkg to install. I can not figure out the correct command prompt to type in.

To open the .dmg file I typed "/volumes/macintosh hd/usr/bin/open" "/volumes/NO NAME/MasOSXUpd10.4.11Intel.dmg"

Where NO NAME is the name of my USB drive.

[Giaguara]

If you have another Mac, this could work -- on the other mac, download the 10.4.11 combo updater, mount the dmg and copy the actual ".pkg" file (MacOSXUpdCombo10.4.11Intel.pkg or something like that) onto an iPod or external hard drive etc.

On the MacBook, boot then from 10.4 install dvd, launch Terminal, then type:

/Volumes/MYDRIVE/usr/bin/open /Applications/Utilities/Installer.app /Volumes/IPODLOCATION/MacOSXUpdCombo10.4.11Intel.pkg

This should launch the combo installer, and then you should be able to reboot it after the update is done.

Of if you have any friends who have a Mac, you could download that update on their place and then transfer it to your Mac over the hard drive, iPod etc.

[mikeq]

Hi,

It sounds like I had the same sympton, different powerbook G4 (not intel). You can check the post about mid Nov (Problems booting up....or something like that).

The suggestions that were given helped me learn a bit but didn't solve the problem.

The only thing that got me going again was to insert the Tiger install disk, run the install, but preserve the settings. Everything works fine no files lost, just a few settings a bit querky.

However, it has done it again, once. But it's working, I waited for over a week for a friend to lend me a MAC, which didn't work. I zapped PRAM, reset NVRAM, did a load of other stuff, but it was the install that worked.

Hope that helps you? However my caveat is I am not a MAC techie, or techie at all. It just seemed that the only thing that worked was the re-install.

This might be the wrong thing to say on a MAC forum, but I thought there might be a bit of hidden code somewhere on Tiger for it to start going srewy now that Panther is out. But I'm not really that paranoid, or cynical.

Good luck