Lion update today crashed MacBook Pro

It seems to be a bug with the update.

READ ALL THIS. IT WILL SAVE YOUR COMPUTER. YOU WILL NOT LOSE ANY FILES AND DO NOT HAVE TO RESORT TO A TIME MACHINE BACKUP IF YOU PROPERLY PURCHASED LION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry for grammer...typing fast

Assuming that you have properly purchased OS X Lion...

IF YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH MAC

!) shut down laptop

2) Hold down option key and restart computer

3) Choose Recovery HD from the boot menu

4) Make sure Wifi is on, and connected to internet

5) Choose Reinstall OS X Lion from the Recovery Utility Menu

At this point, your computer is going to attempt to contact apple and download an eariler version of Lion. I tried doing this, but it wasnt able to make a connection, and ened up saying close the application and try again. Dont waste your time here...move on

IF YOU HAVE A RECENT TIME MACHINE BACKUP

-follow the steps above except obviously choose restore from time machine backup

IF YOU HAVE A COUPLE FILES YOU WANTED TO SAVE SINCE THAT LAST BACKUP

-you will need another Mac to save them and a firewire 800-firewire 800 cable

1) turn of the broken laptop

2) Plug firewire from broken laptop to working laptop

3) turn on working latop and open finder

4) hold down the "T" key on the broken one and start it

5) you should see a grey screen with a battery indicator and a firewire logo floating on the screen

6) in finder on the working computer, you should now see the harddrive of your old computer, drag the files you want to the new one and restore to a backup with the steps above

IF YOU HAVE AN OS X LION CD-ROM

1) Turn off computer

2) Insert Lion install disk

3) Start up computer while holding Option key

4) Release option key when several hard drive icons appear

5) Click the arrow below the CD-ROM icon

6) From the list of tasks in the Recovery Utility window, choose Reinstall OS X Lion. This option will NOT touch any of your files, it will only strip the OS and replace it.

IF YOU HAVE ANOTHER LAPTOP

1) On the working laptop, navigate to the App Store, and Sign in

2) Search for OS X Lion in the app store

3) If you correctly purchased the Lion upgrade originally, you should be able to click the "Download" button next to the Lion photo. ALTERNATIVELY you can click "purchases" in the app store, and navigate to the Install Lion app, and then click download from there

4) When Lion installs, conduct a Spotlight search (very far upper right hand corner of your screen magnifing glass) for "Install Mac OS X Lion" and choose "reveal items in finder"

5) right click on the Install Mac OS X Lion app (the one with the lion picture)

6) Choose "show package contents"

7) Open "contents"

8) Open "shared support"

9) In the spot light search, no type "disk utility"

10) in shared support, drag "InstallESD.dmg" to some blank white space in the left hand box of the Disk Utility window (the correct box probably says something like "500.11 GB ST90546500" on the first line, and "MAC HD" on the second line.)

11) Right click on the "InstallESD.dmg" in the disk utility box (the location you just dragged to) and right click it and choose "Open Disk Image"

12) insert a free USB thumbdrive (CAUTION. if you do not know how to create a new partition [[[5GB REQUIRED FOR THIS STEP]]] then everything MAY be wiped from this drive)

13) Your new drive should show up in black in disk utility. If it shows up grey, click on it and in the erase tab of Disk Utiliy, make sure you choose MAC OS JOURNALED from the drop down menu and click erase

14) In disk utility, click on the drive listed below "InstallESD.dmg" should be called "Mac OS X Install ESD"

15) In the restore tab, you should see "Mac OS X Install ESD" in the source tab

16) Drag your USB flash drive from the left hand box of disk utility to the "destination" text box

17) Click restore. It should take about 15-20 minutes. once done, eject the flash drive and plug it in to your broken computer

18) Start the borken one and hold down option

19) you should now see at least these three options come up on a grey screen MAC HD (harddrive icon), RECOVERY HD (harddrive icon), and MAC OS X INSTALL ESD (usb icon)

20) Choose MAC OS X INSTALL ESD

21) choose install a version of lion from the recovery utility menu

22) THIS IS DIFFERENT THAN THE FIRST SET OF STEPS I LISTED. ONCE YOU BOOT FROM THAT FLASH DRIVE, IT WILL NOW TRY TO FIND THE LION OS FROM YOUR DRIVE WITHOUT ATTEMPTING TO CONTACT APPLE FROM THE INTERNET (like how it would of had you selected Recovery HD from the boot menu)

23) Now your computer should go through some basic prompts, install for about 15 minutes, and then restart and finish installing for about 35 minutes.

24) You should be back to normal. DO NOT UPDATE TO that 10.4.7 or whatever it is called. if your computer asks, click show details and UNCHECK that option.

Is there a way to do the reinstallation of Lion in a way that does not erase one's HD and instead just writes over the existing install? I noted that a couple of people in this thread suggested as much.... I have a TM back from an hour or so prior to doing the faulty update, but I also have tons of software on my MBP for which I no longer have the boxes/licenses (read: one day my wife decided she'd clean up my work space and threw out the "empty" software boxes, many of which had original discs inside...!) -- I was only able to switch macs last year by copying a clone of my last MBP drive over to it...Time Machine didn't keep some of the licenses so I had to do the migration via cloning....

Anyway, bottom line: can I just over-write Lion backwards with having to utilize my TM backup AND still save all settings and software (including those that are deeply attached to the OS?

Alternatively, I have a clone from four months ago (snow leopard) -- if I clone that, I am assuming that my now Lion (though it has iterations from Lion since I only upgraded to Lion 3-4 weeks ago) TM drive will not be able to add programs/data post dated from that clone, correct?

Thanks for your clarification of the points above...good luck to everyone!

A time machine backup will put your computer to exactly how it was an hour ago. that is a good option. If you follow the directions i gave it will do exactly what you want...overwrite ONLY the corrupt lion files and replace them with working lion ones from the original version of lion

I have been following this all night. Its now 2:30 am where I am. Crazy... Thanks to everyone for their input.

I booted up in recovery mode - clicked on Safari to see specific instructions on how to Reinstall OS X Lion and SAVE DATA and FILES

The reinstallation took 4-5 hours, it felt like a lifetime!! But the procedure seems to be working fine, all data in tact. I recommend reading the posts, reinstalling in recovery mode, following the safari apple instructions.

This really concerned me initially as there weren't many posts on this when I started this evening.

Here is another suggestion (below) and a link to the full artical. I had already begun my reinstall by the time I read this but it might suit some people.

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57451440-263/thunderbolt-update-plaguing-ma cbook-pros-with-kernel-panics/

and excerpt:

Reapply combo updater

First check to see if your system will start up in Safe Mode by holding the Shift key down at startup. If this is successful, then you can download the OS X 10.7.4 Combo updaterand apply it to your system, which should replace the faulty kernel extension with the older one.

If you cannot boot to Safe Mode, then you can still apply the combo updater but you will need access to a second Mac running Lion in order to do so. To use the second Mac to reapply the combo updater, boot up your problematic Mac while holding the T key down, and you should see it load into Target Disk mode. Then attach the Mac to the second one either using a Thunderbolt cable or using a FireWire cable. When you do this the Mac's hard drive should mount as an external disk on the second Mac.

Next download the OS X 10.7.4 Combo updater and run it, but choose the hard drive of your faulty Mac as the installation destination instead of the internal drive of the working Mac. When the update is done, eject the Target Disk mode hard drive from your second Mac and restart the faulty system, and your computer should boot normally.

good luck to all....

Did all of your programs recognize their licenses? What about software like adobe...you have any higher-end apps on your system that remained completely functional after reinstallation? Did you have to use a TM backup in the process? Thanks Boysetsthefire!

Thanks...so to clarify: your two sentences seem to suggest different approaches. 1st seems to suggest that my Mac will look the same as an hour before the crash ?(although I'm worried about my higher-end software seeing my machine as licensed). The second seems to suggest that WITHOUT using TM backup, that I can have my machine back to exactly how it was in EVERY respect the second before I did the update.

Do I understand you correctly? Thanks!

If you remember when you updated from Snow Leopard to Lion...it will basically have the same effect on your computer as that did. Mine went fine, which is the way it was intended to go...meaning I flipped OS's Snow to Lion without even noticing a different with my files and apps. It shouldnt touch anything except how the computer funtions. Time machine is also suppose to put your computer back identitical to how it was at the time of backup. I say you try reinstalling Lion first..cause itll probably be faster. then worst case...if that doesnt work (which it should) do the time machine. do you have a lion install CD or another Mac that is still running?

yes you understand correctly. In your case its almost 6 in one, half dozen the other. You are lucky because you just completed a backup.

time machine backup will basiclly wipe the entire computer and reput everything back how it was an hour before the update

reinstalling Lion will strip the last update (the one that put you in limbo) and put the working version of lion back on it. It doesnt touch any of your files or apps (((exception being itunes and iphoto and imovie, because they come with the OS). all the stuff that you added to the computer shouldnt be touched by the reinstall

No, I have three MBPs, but I was just trying to feel secure in Lion (I have had a persistent photo ordering problem in my iPhones that appears to be fixed in the notes to this update, which makes this crash particularly nasty!) before upgrading my wife's 15" and our joint 17" MBPs -- we have to convert everything shortly as we have a MobileMe family pack (6/30/12 MobileMe dies) and I am trying to split my Apple ID and my MobileMe accounts correctly...needless to say (as others have), I am not feeling too secure right now...

yeah just pull lion off of your purchases form the app store, and make it a bootable disk image..and boot the broken one from that drive and youll be fine. i think you gotta get down to one apple ID and then things get easier. most of that people at work still run snow becasue of their lack of faith also. im hoping lion is like Windows Vista was...and this was a freak mistake. just have to hope this isnt related to Job's absence.

"........ just have to hope this isnt related to Job's absence."

I think we can safely assume the Steve Jobs didn't personally check every software update. These things happen, it's annoying and unusual to be such a critical problem after an update but not unheard of is the land of OSX. Fortunately either Time Machine or reinstalling the OS from the recovery disk works rather well.

you would be surprised how much a good leader can influence a company even as large as apple

I know where you're coming from, however under Steve Jobs leadership, as good as it was, there have been a few humdingers.....off the top of my head .Mac and MobileMe as a whole and then it's rather disasterous migrations (from .Mac to Mobileme)

Apple pulled the Thunderbolt uodate today. I updated the remaining three items without problems.

I wonder how long the lines were at the genius bar! And I'll bet they are still lining up. For those that want an easy remedy that does not erase your files and prefs, see my earlier post. Works like a charm.

I had a similar issue, although I am not sure which Software Update item caused the problem. Afterwards, I had kernal panics when restarting and the MacBook Pro was unusable. I booted off the recovery partition and was able to reinstall Lion on my second attempt. (The first attempt crashed after 3.5 hours.) I am now up and running and installing downloading the combo updater for Lion. Sure wasted my entire day at the office!