Ticket Options

Question Profile

Question Details

TICKET ARCHIVE -> MacBook Pro Upgrade Froze, Can't Boot

megamichan - Mar 14, 2007 - 3:10 pm

I have a MacBook Pro that was running 10.4.8. I was allowing it to upgrade to 10.4.9 while I continued to leave my email windows open. After a while, none of my programs were responding. I checked the upgrade progress... it was nearly done, however, it was at the same exact spot as it was when I checked it half an hour prior.

I shut the computer down so that I could start it back up and redo the uprade progress... but it won't boot. I searched for others with the same issue, and many said to boot into safe mode by holding down Shift after hearing the chimes at startup. This doesn't seem to do anything for my laptop. Some said to boot from CD. I put in my installation disk of 10.4.6 that came with the computer, when if I select to boot with 10.4.6, it just comes back with the installation screen from the CD. From the CD, I also tried to reboot into 10.4.9, but it still doesn't boot... it gets caught on the screen with the Apple and the spinning circle.

I've also tried to restart without my mouse plugged in, but it still remains on the same screen. How else can I force boot my MacBook Pro so that I can finish the upgrade and be on my merry way?

ishan - Mar 15, 2007 - 11:52 am

Boot from the Install CD that came with your MBP. When it's done booting, look on the menubar and you'll see that Disk Utility is available there. Run Disk Utility to repair your drive and repair permissions while booted from the install CD (you won't be installing anything, just running Disk Utility). Then restart while holding down the option key. You'll get a choice of booting from your install CD or your hard drive. Pick your hard drive. If you boot successfully, immediately download the combo updater to 10.4.9 (all 310 MB of it) from Apple's downloads site and run it. Then restart.

If Disk Utility cannot fix any errors it finds on your drive, you have a bigger problem. You can either do an archive and install with your original install CDs, and then use that downloader to upgrade to 10.4.9 or buy DiskWarrior (from Alsoft), a superb utility that does a lot of things Disk Utility doesn't. Boot up with DW (if you go that route) and see if it can repair your drive so that it's bootable. I still would run the combo updater, however.

If you plan to be using Macs for a while, Disk Utility is really indispensable.

HTH and please let us know what happens. Thanks.

megamichan - Mar 15, 2007 - 2:43 pm

I spent most of the day trouble shooting, and I tried the repair disk, but it found no errors. I repaired permissions, and it didn't do anything to help boot.

After a lot of trouble shooting, I was able to install OSX 10.4.6 from my installation disk and have it back up my old system data. It was claiming that I still needed to free about 5BG, but I found that the "Install" button was no longer grayed out. So I gave it a shot, and even though my login profile images were missing, I was able to boot and get to all of my files! I immediately backed up everything and re-upgraded, without a hitch this time. The only problem is that I know have very little free space on my hard drive, and I'm trying to find where the old system data was backed up. I think I may have found it, but I'm not sure if it's safe to delete it yet.

ishan - Mar 15, 2007 - 2:50 pm

The old data is in a folder called "Previous Systems" at the root level of your hard drive. Take a look through all the files in there before deleting it. Some of them are just apps that were reinstalled, but check through all the other files, especially preferences, etc. that may be needed to authorize use of third party apps after your fresh install. Nice work and good luck.