Main>Support Categories>Mac OS X Unix Stuff Q23

[specialed]

I had the same problem as question 23 in the Mac OS X Unix Stuff category. I got this because I inadvertantly trashed some important things in my System folder.

This was a system I had just purchased from EBay and installed 10.4 on it from the DVD so I was not adverse to reinstalling. However, with the system trashed, I could not get past the "panic" screen no matter what I tried: holding the "C" key, holding "option" key, holding "command-option-delete".

What ended up working was disconnecting my hard drive. This allowed the boot rom to find the 10.4 DVD and begin booting from it. As soon as it started booting, I reconnected the hard disk. The installer found it, figured out that it was doing an upgrade, and proceeded to correct the things I trashed. It is important to get the hard disk plugged in quickly after the DVD is detected. It took me two tries before the installer was able to detect the hard drive.

Ed