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SL Installation Locked Up

S

Spyderturbo007

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 7, 2009
90
1
I was trying to install Snow Leopard on my MBA via a remote DVD drive on my PC. The installation took about an hour and I got to the screen that says "Install Successful". It said that the computer needed to be rebooted and I clicked the button at the bottom of the screen that said "Restart".

When I did that, I got the colored pinwheel and it's been sitting like that for the last 20 minutes. :eek:

This is my first Mac and I don't know much about them so it figures it would happen to me. What should I do?
 
If it hung after it said Installation Successful - I would not worry much. Just give it a reset by pressing the power button. It might just be some network related thing.
 
Here is where I'm stuck. You can see the pinwheel sitting there spinning around.


img0317smw.jpg
 
Yeah there isn't much you can do at that point - just recycle and hopefully it will reboot right into the Desktop!

Next time if you have a external DVD drive for the Air - try installing it from there. Network installs of operating systems work purely by luck.
 
I don't have an external drive, so the network install was my only option. So I should just press and hold the power button until it restarts?
 
Well, that seems to have worked. I opened a bunch of programs and they seem to be functioning properly. The only problem I see is that the light indicating the computer is on no longer functions. It was working find when the installation was running.

Any way to fix that?
 
Please bear with me, but I know very little about Macs. Can you tell me how I would go about repairing the disk? Thanks for being patient. :)
 
Spyderturbo007 said:
...The only problem I see is that the light indicating the computer is on no longer functions. It was working find when the installation was running.

Any way to fix that?
Click to expand...

Unless I'm mistaken, there is no light to show that the computer's on... only asleep.
 
Spyderturbo007 said:
Please bear with me, but I know very little about Macs. Can you tell me how I would go about repairing the disk? Thanks for being patient. :)
Click to expand...

1. Go to Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility
2. Click the First Aid tab.
3. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
4. Select your Mac OS X volume.
5. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk.
 
I don't seem to have a disclosure triangle next to the drive name and even when I select Macintosh HD the "Repair Disk" button is grayed out.



Oh, and on a side note, after searching around to find out how to do a screen shot, it's much easier on a Mac than a PC!
 
Spyderturbo007 said:
I don't seem to have a disclosure triangle next to the drive name and even when I select Macintosh HD the "Repair Disk" button is grayed out.
Click to expand...

Oh... sorry. You can only do this from the Snow Leopard install disk.

Insert the Snow Leopard installation disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu after you select your language. Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
 
Is all this effort really worth it to see a light that I don't think exists? Can someone with a MBA confirm the existence of a light that "shows when the computer's working?"
 
And to continue to be a pain in the butt :), will this work over the network sharing a DVD drive with my PC?
 
Southernboy said:
Is all this effort really worth it to see a light that I don't think exists? Can someone with a MBA confirm the existence of a light that "shows when the computer's working?"
Click to expand...

No it's not and I realize that I was going nuts when I thought the light was on when the PC was on. I stand corrected. It functions correctly when the lid is closed or when the lid is open and the display is off.

Someone suggested a Disk Repair I guess because of the problems I had with the installation.
 
I tried putting the SL disk in my PC and it autoran to the option to choose install OSX on the Mac or install the CD/DVD sharing utility which is already installed. I cancelled out of the window on the PC and booted the Mac holding the "C" key and nothing happened. It just booted normally.

Maybe I have to choose OSX installation on the PC screen so it will connect to the MBA?

EDIT -> Nevermind. If I could read :) I would have seen that it says you can choose the Install OSX remotely button on the PC autorun screen for Disk Utility or Hardware Tests. Sorry, I should have looked more carefully.
 
Ok, I went through the Disk Repair feature and it looks like everything is OK. While I was in there, I decided to do the "Repair Permissions" as well. It looks like it found two problems but only repaired one of them.

The other one says "Warning: SUID file "System/Library/Core...as been modified and will not be repaired."

Is there any way to fix that? I have posted some pictures below. I had to take them with my iPhone, so they didn't come out very good.

img0319d.jpg



img0318x.jpg
 
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