Startup problem

[wahei-no-tenshi]

Hi,

I think my macbook had a problem while installing a recent update, and now it always gets stuck during startup (at gray screen with the apple logo). I've tried using disk utility to repair disk/permissions as well as going into single-user mode and running fsck -f, both to no avail. Tried booting in safe mode, but it fails. Now, there's a couple of things I'm wondering...

1. I've read that installing a combo update can sometimes correct damage caused during updates, but is there any way I can install it pre-startup (via a flash drive or something)?

2. My next option would be to archive and install, but will this work if I only have my original OS X install disc which is 10.4 (and I'm currently running 10.6)? And will I lose anything on my HDD in the process??

Any advice/help would be much appreciated, thanks.

 

[eman]

Run 10.6 Snow Leopard again and everything should remain the same on your HD.

 

[wahei-no-tenshi]

Thanks for the reply. I went out and got a new snow leopard disc, but now when I try to reinstall snow leopard it says, "Mac OS X couldn't be installed on this disk","The contents of this disk can't be changed".

Any idea why that's happening, or how it can be fixed?

 

[eman]

Are you sure you're running 10.6 Snow Leopard already? If so, just click on the HD that has 10.6 and load the OS.