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nissin

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 19, 2008
26
0
I have a 15" mbp with 10.6 Intel core duo, 4gb ram with a boot camp and ubuntu partition through parallels.
The other day I was installing xcode from apple's website, which failed 3 times after downloading saying the package couldn't be expanded. I left my computer for a while and came back where i then had to log in again. it rejected my password numerous time (i'm positive it was correct). when i restarted my computer i got a kernal panic screen when the apple logo came up. it told me to restart the computer which i did... didn't work. i restarted with the osx cd to use the disk utility. when it checked the drive it found a bunch of errors, which i then tried to correct. it went for a couple minutes then told me they couldn't be fixed and i should try to back up my data and reinstall osx. i don't know how to back up my hard drive when i can't log into my account.
i've tried to boot in target disk mode and copy some files that way, but the only disk the other computer sees is my windows partition- no mac partition.
i've also tried these, none of these have worked:
restarting in safe mode
resetting the ram and pram
booting with different sticks of ram
all result in a kernal panic.

my windows partition still works fine though (as much as i hate to say it)

the only things I really care about on my computer are my files from school and my itunes library. is there any way i can get these files off my computer?
does anyone have any other ideas i could try?

thank you for the help in advance
 
When you booted into Target Disk Mode, did you connect your MacBook Pro into a Mac or a PC? If a PC, they cannot read or write to HFS formatted hard drives, so you wouldn't be able to see your Mac partition on there.
 
right, it was into a slightly older mbp.
i just got off the line with a really helpful apple tech with another problem, and he said my best bet was to back up my disk with the disk utility by pushing c when i boot. i've tried this before but it says my mac hd isn't mounted and it wont mount. hello genius bar appointment.
 
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