Q: How ****** am I ! osx lion crashes and wont upgrade

OK, Mike --

We realize you're very upset, and we do understand.  We're all just other Mac users here, asking questions, and sharing solutions.  Welcome.

1.  So, can you tell me more about your iMac?  When you click on the Apple icon (upper left of the menu bar), and select "About this Mac," under iMac, what does it say?  Size & Date?

2.  How much space is available on your Hard Drive?

3.  How much RAM is installed?

I have a 5-year-old iMac, and it has run Lion, and Mountail Lion like a champ.  I think there's some one wonky thing amiss.  If you'll be patient, we can help you find that. 

Great help from ~Bee so far, just to add...

Bootup holding CMD+r, or the Option/alt key to boot from the Restore partition & use Disk Utility from there to Repair the Disk, then Repair Permissions.

One way to test is to Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, Test for problem in Safe Mode...

PS. Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive

Reboot, test again.

If it only does it in Regular Boot, then it could be some hardware problem like Video card, (Quartz is turned off in Safe Mode), or Airport, or some USB or Firewire device, or 3rd party add-on, Check System Preferences>Accounts>Login Items window to see if it or something relevant is listed.

Check the System Preferences>Other Row, for 3rd party Pref Panes.

See if the Disk is issuing any S.M.A.R.T errors in Disk Utility...

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH7029

Open Activity Monitor in Applications>Utilities, select All Processes & sort on CPU%, any indications there?

How much RAM & free space do you have also, click on the Memory & Disk Usage Tabs.

Open Console in Utilities & see if there are any clues or repeating messages when this happens.

In the Memory tab, are there a lot of Pageouts?

Mike, the upgrade from Snow Leopard to Lion or Mountain Lion is a big leap for many reasons, most of which are outdated software or poorly implemented third party system modifications that are incompatible with Lion. The problems you have ought to be fixable, once those causes are identified and eliminated or otherwise corrected.

When you find the time and after you digest what ~Bee and BDAqua have to suggest, consider the following as well. It may help, or it may not, but it is harmless and simple enough to try:

Apple Support Communities contributor etresoft wrote a very useful app to quickly gather certain system information that may help point to a cause of this problem. Go to his website, download and run EtreCheck:

http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck

The rainbow "wait cursor" will appear for a brief moment as it collects its data. Do not be concerned about anything that says "Problem" or "failed".

Copy and paste its output in a reply.

EtreCheck was designed to remove any personal information (such as your computer's name and serial numbers) but if you see anything that looks like an email address or any other personal information that should not be divulged to others, please delete or obscure that information when you post the reply.

When you are finished with EtreCheck, quit the program. It occupies very little space, and you can keep it or drag it to the Trash as you wish.

mikemoraites wrote:

 

... i have the following message warning suid file "system/library/core services/remote management/ardagent/contents/macosardgent" has been modified and will not be repaired

That is normal: Mac OS X: Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions messages that you can safely ignore

That's OK, mike --

Please do go back to my message above, and find the numbers for your HD capacity,used, available, OK?

We really need to know that before going much further.

Don't know what Windows PCs you were using but I find the ones I have run better then my late 2011 15" Mac ever could and that is with either Snow Leopard, Lion or Mt Lion installed on it.

More then likely your problem with the Mac is caused by the same reasons you had problems with PCs. That is all the JUNK and KWrap software you end up installing on it.

Good Luck.

Good work Mike.

Have you blown the dust out lately?

Get Temperature Monitor to see if it's heat related...

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/12381/temperature-monitor

iStat Menus...

http://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/

And/or iStat Pro...

http://www.islayer.com/apps/istatpro/

EDIT: you won't find iStat Pro at BDAqua's link any longer. (No longer supported by the developer, and not completely compatible with Mountain Lion, but most of its features should still be working.) It's here

https://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/istatpro.html