No dock, can't shutdown or restart, can't close certain programs

[bicyclecowboy]

I'm trying to help a friend solve a computer problem. He has an iMac running OS 10.4. After he did a couple of software updates (I don't know exactly what, because I wasn't there) he lost the dock and can no longer restart or shutdown without holding the power button.

I've repaired disk permissions, tried killall Dock, and tried to change the dock setting to bring it back, but nothing has worked.

He can still run programs from the finder.

Let me know if you have any ideas.

Thanks

 

[BlueRevolution]

Repair permissions?

 

[bicyclecowboy]

yes, I repaired disk permissions and it did nothing

 

[Hmac]

Diskwarrior would be my next move, if he has it. Alternatively, you could boot from his install disk and repair disk with disk utility?

If all else fails, you could reformat, reinstall, and migrate from his backup. If he doesn't have a backup, you could boot his machine up in target disk mode and recover his data onto your Mac, THEN reinstall his OS.