on noes! Stuck at the spinni g wheel

[nick9871]

so on my MacBook I was doing the recent intel update and it failed in the middle. Nothing would open so restartex the comp. Now the thing just sits at the pinwheel. I tried to use shift to boot but unless I did it wrong it did b
not work. I have about 25 gigs of pictures I can't loose on there. What is the next step to take?

Ps I posted this from my iPhone LOL! I have no other macs..

 

[mac-convert]

Did you attempt just an Upgrade?

 

[nick9871]

when i boot from the osx discs i dont have the option to upgrade. I have the option to keep user data or erase and install. The pictures are located on the desktop, would they be saved?

 

[Eidorian]

I suggest trying an Archive and Install.

 

[mac-convert]

Is this the drop in disk that they put in the box for the 10.5.0 upgrade?

 

[nick9871]

no its 10.3.9 so if the pics are on the desktop then they will be saved? And what about aperture settings and library?

 

[mac-convert]

Okay - let's get the full story.

What OS were you running before you started the update?

What OS were you trying to update to?

What was the failure in the middle that you mentioned?

I am aware you are on an iPhone - this is one time an extra PC around the house would be useful.

 

[nick9871]

i was just doing the most tecent update that "software update" told me to do. I got a msg at the end of the update installation tbat said there wa
as an error during install, nothing then worked do i reststed and got the infinite spinni g wheel. I am trying a archive abd restore now so we will see how that goes

 

[mac-convert]

Okay, great. The archive and restore does exactly that. It will save all of your settings and data, update the system, and then restore all that it saved. So all of your pics should be there when you finish. If not, check a folder at the top of your hard drive called Previous System and you will see what the system archived before it performed the update.