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Kernel Panic During Update to 10.6.8

S

swingerofbirch

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Oct 24, 2003
3,692
4,705
The Amalgamated States of Central North America
I have a 2 GHZ C2D 17" iMac (older model) that I don't use that often, but last night I decided to run software update on it. After downloading several updates, which included 10.6.8 and the new iTunes etc., it was installing before restarting when it had a kernel panic.

I was forced to power off the machine and back on again. I was in for the shock of my life when after a long delay it booted into Windows XP! I had forgotten I had created a Windows partition on that machine a long time ago. So basically, it will now not boot to the Mac partition at all.

I have a couple of questions: 1) I can't remember what documents are on this computer, but can I assume that the software update only corrupted the system software and probably didn't erase any documents in the home directory? I probably have some personal writing on there, and I wouldn't be able to tell by memory whether things have been erased or not. 2) Is there any way short of reinstalling from a restore disc to save the corrupted Mac partition?? 3) Is my best best to try to back up the data from the Mac partition while booted into Windows? Or is there a way with Firewire target disk mode to have the iMac's drive show up on my MacBook Pro? I kind of forget how that works.

Thank you very much for any help you have.
 
swingerofbirch said:
I have a 2 GHZ C2D 17" iMac (older model) that I don't use that often, but last night I decided to run software update on it. After downloading several updates, which included 10.6.8 and the new iTunes etc., it was installing before restarting when it had a kernel panic.

I was forced to power off the machine and back on again. I was in for the shock of my life when after a long delay it booted into Windows XP! I had forgotten I had created a Windows partition on that machine a long time ago. So basically, it will now not boot to the Mac partition at all.

I have a couple of questions: 1) I can't remember what documents are on this computer, but can I assume that the software update only corrupted the system software and probably didn't erase any documents in the home directory? I probably have some personal writing on there, and I wouldn't be able to tell by memory whether things have been erased or not. 2) Is there any way short of reinstalling from a restore disc to save the corrupted Mac partition?? 3) Is my best best to try to back up the data from the Mac partition while booted into Windows? Or is there a way with Firewire target disk mode to have the iMac's drive show up on my MacBook Pro? I kind of forget how that works.

Thank you very much for any help you have.
Click to expand...

1) Insert your SL install disk and restart. Hold option and load up the installer. Use Disk Utilities located in the menu to repair disk permissions. See if that solves the problem.
2) If it doesn't, you have several options. You can back your files up via Boot Camp or possibly use an Ubuntu Live-CD and connect via firewire. Preferably use the Ubuntu live disk as you might need to install something in Windows.
3) You can connect the drive via firewire to your MBP. This is easy to do. Transfer files from the home directory.
4) Erase/install once finished.
 
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