Lion update killed Snow Leopard - Eh?

Question

Level 4

2,985 points

Lion update killed Snow Leopard - Eh?

Hi all,

Here is my extremely strange issue. It is a little long-winded so please bear with me.

I installed Lion on a 40GB partition of my 2.66Ghz 24" iMac just after its release a couple of months ago using Bootcamp just to give it a try. Yesterday I booted into Lion and ran all the updates. No problems thus far. All the updates installed and it runs fine. However, when I rebooted into SnowLeopard (my main OS) the finder is all funky. When I try to open more than one window or two pieces of software the other one disappears from the desktop into some sort of cyber void. Also, when I restart it boots to the disc select screen with three options, Snow Leopard, Lion or the Lion recovery disc, which seems to be a base system built in to Lion. I tried running the disc repair utility on the Snow Leopard drive from the Lion recovery disc, which came up with no errors. I have run the permissions repair and Onyx in Snow Leopard. I deleted a few preference files and forced quit the Finder a few times, but it still is funky. It has me bewildered! I can only reason there is a conflict between running the two versions of OSX and somehow the Lion Recovery disc and/or updates have interfered with Snow Leopard.

Any ideas? I am tempted to delete the Lion partition with Bootcamp to see if it fixes the problem, but fear the damage has already been done to Snow Leopard. I could do a restore from Time Machine, but I would like to know if there is a connection between running the two versions of OSX.

Any input most welcome

Thanks in advance

SR

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8), 24", 1.6GHz MacBook Air, iPhone4

Posted on Sep 11, 2011 7:06 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

Joe Gramm

Level 5

6,407 points

Sep 11, 2011 7:20 PM in response to Silly rabbit

I think your problem is you don't have a single Partition. Below text from this article section 2-6

Reply

Answer 2

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Sep 11, 2011 7:27 PM in response to Silly rabbit

There should be no interaction between the separate partitions. I suggest you boot your 10.6 volume in safe mode and do some testing to see whether the problems persist.

Mac OS X: Starting up in Safe Mode

Reply

Answer 3

Joe Gramm

Level 5

6,407 points

Sep 11, 2011 7:31 PM in response to Linc Davis

Linc Davis, Why does the article say the disk must be a single partition.

Reply

Answer 4

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Sep 11, 2011 7:39 PM in response to Joe Gramm

You have to start with a single partition in order to create another partition with BCA.

Reply

Answer 5

Joe Gramm

Level 5

6,407 points

Sep 11, 2011 7:43 PM in response to Linc Davis

So once Boot camp is installed on a single partition, you can then repartition. If that's true, is the Lion Recovery HD ever an issue in repartitioning.

Reply

Answer 6

Silly rabbit Author

Level 4

2,985 points

Sep 12, 2011 5:54 AM in response to Silly rabbit

Thank you everyone for your input. Strangely enough, the issue disappeared as quickly as it erupted. It is fine now. Finder is normal and it restarts normally. I don't know how or why it happened, but it has sorted itself out now. I was using Toast 11 to convert some video when the issue became apparent and it may have been a Toast thing, but it is also fine now. I am still as bewildered as everyone else and greatly appreciate your input.

And, just to add, there is definitely only one partition. I had never seen the Lion restore option come up before. As I said before, it must be built into the base system of Lion cos it has not re-partioned the drive. I can account for every GB of the drive minus the standard half a dozen voided GBs.

On the bright side, it did make me do an updated back up of both my system and data, so there is a silver lining in every system glitch.

Thank you all again

SR

Reply