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Mac OS X will not boot after updates

Minutes after receiving the Apple Security Update in my email, I quickly ran the system wide Apple Software Update (OS X Lion 10.7.4, Macbook Pro8,2). With the iTunes update came two other updates. The first updatewas for iPhoto '11. The second update was for the Thunderbolt to support Gigabit Ethernet. To the best of my knowledge, all went well with downloading. It was a hefty update, the iPhoto '11 update alone being 599.65 MB. After installation, a dialog appeared allowing the user to "Restart now" or later. A firm believer in immediately restarting the computer when it tells me to, I did so. Once the desktop faded, my mac began installing my updates as the updates could not have been installed while core system services were running. In about 10 minutes, the progress bar had reached the end, but a peculiar dialog appeared. It said that the updates that I wanted installed, were not installed. I pressed the only button on the dialog which removed the dialog box and left me with the empty wallpaper of the same texture as the iOS 5 Notification Center, the same wallpaper used during Mac Recovery during bootup. After another 10 minutes, nothing had changed; I was still staring at this lovely wallpaper. Knowing things had gone sour, I held down the power button for a few seconds until it turned off. After turning the computer back on, and booting into Mac OS X, I was, and still am, faced with a few lines of text.


Now I am unable to boot into Mac OS X.

There is no recovery partition (as I'm triple booting, which apparently mac doesn't like), but I have booted into a Recovery-ish mode using the Lion Internet Recovery. I have verified the disk: no problems found, a good solid green line saying everything's ok. I went ahead and clicked on repair, to which it did not report fixing anything. I am currently booted into my Windows 7 (also noted my Windows is running incredibly slow, possibly just a placebo effect of me losing my Mac OS X) in which I am typing this. I have my Mac OS X backed up via Time Machine from earlier this morning (thank goodness...) but I would still like to not have to wipe my harddrive, install Snow Leopard, upgrade to Lion, install Windows 7, install linux, and then restore respective operating system's data.


Is there ANY possible way I can make my Mac OS X bootable again? Or even re-installing Snow Leopard/Lion without touching the partitions behind it?


Link to screenshot of verbose boot screen: http://db.tt/gOMGuxAQ

(As this website tries to put in the entire photo in its fullest resolution if I post the picture here...)

MacBook Pro (15-inch Early 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Jun 11, 2012 6:33 PM

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22 replies

Jun 11, 2012 7:38 PM in response to SeeYa32

I, too, installed the recommended updates and my system is unable to boot (kernel panic?). For the record, I went through pretty much the same process as described above. Likewise, I received a message indicating the updates failed to install and then rebooted only to get the same screen as the error displayed in the user posting above.


Not good timing to have to deal with this. 😟


MacBook Pro (15-inch Early 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Jun 11, 2012 10:10 PM in response to Larry Gordon

Concerning Lion recovery, now I know this may be a dumb question, but as I've only restored from time machine during a clean, empty hard drive install...


will recovering from a time machine backup mess with my windows 7 or Linux operating systems? Or will the recovery only mess with the Mac OS X system partition?


Any and all help from anyone is greatly appreciated! I would very much like not to have to reinstall and restore 3 operating systems, let alone restore from a clone made at the beginning of the month (I totally meant to make another cloned image of my harddrive yesterday...)

Jun 12, 2012 1:15 AM in response to SeeYa32

Bassically all of you now having kernal panics. If you have your Install thumbdrives/DVDs, insert them and hold C. After this, you reinstall software. If you purchased from the Mac App Store, if any other friends have macs, you have to install on a external drive, then boot up from the external drive's Recovery HD by holding option key and connect the external disk. Select Recovery HD and press Enter, then reinstall.


Reset your SMC and PRAM:



http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964


http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

Mac OS X will not boot after updates

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