Mac side won't boot up, Windows partition does

[trojan18]

When I turned on my Mac today, it stuck on the logo screen and kept spinning. I tried rebooting while holding down shift for safe mode but that is actually worse and causes the Please restart your computer screen to come up after 10 seconds every time.

However, if I hold down option, I can go to the windows partition under boot camp and Windows boots up fine. (Oh, the irony)

Is it my hard drive on the Mac side?

Would a reinstall of the OS or a complete redo of Boot Camp fix anything?

I can't get to the Mac side but I can view and open files from the Mac HD while in Windows, I just can't delete or move them. Is there anyway to save these files if it is the hard drive?

Any help at all would be appreciated.

Intel Core i3 iMac, 2 years old, running Snow Leopard.

[arjen92]

Judging from what you said, it appears to me your hard drive is still healthy (windows is on the same drive right? Just another partition).

If you have Lion you should have a restore partition for Lion. You could open that and launch disk utility and restore permissions. See if that helps.

If you don't have the restore partition, you could try the Lion installer on USB (if you have Lion) or the install CD/DVD from the OS you have installed. (Snow Leopard, Leopard, Tiger).

If this doesn't help, Mac OS X might be really damaged and I wouldn't know what to do. You could try google. But another option is to save your files (if you have a big hard drive, or enough space on the partition of windows) and reinstall mac OS X.

[Kaishaven]

Okay I just got a Mac through trade and it turns out to have windows running on it. Can't access windows due to passwords and can't seem to have the os x boot. What the hell do I do? I would like to access osx so I can delete the windows partition. Not particularly a novice, but this is making me feel like an idiot. I've tried using a password reset cd I have but doesn't even seem to run. Help please

[polaroid353]

Did you ever figure this problem out?

The EXACT same thing happened to my bootcamped computer and I have no idea how to fix it.

Thanks!!

[timrhancock]

I've also just had the same thing happen to me - any ideas? Did any of you solve it?

[Charlysnoox21]

Did you ever get to fix the problem i seriously have spend months trying to figure this out. I have the same problem and do not want to reboot the partition with reboot disks.

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did you get a anwer??

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did you ever get an answer for the mac partition not booting.

[BrianBaughn]

The partition for the Snow Leopard installation could be corrupt...possibly even have bad blocks on the hard drive. Recovery by booting OS X from another source is all I can imagine.