Cannot boot after reboot

B

bob876

Registered
Hello!
I cannot boot into an iMac running Leopard 10.5.(8?) and I am not sure why.
The last thing I was doing was rebooting after updating the computer.
When it turned back on, it showed me a grey background with a folder and question mark on it.
I followed these instructions by Apple: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1440?viewlocale=en_US up until I reached step 4.

If I can, I would rather avoid having to reinstall the operating system or calling for support from Apple. (It is also not my iMac so I don't want to buy a copy of Snow Leopard and upgrade either. :) )

Holding down "option" at startup only shows me the recovery disk as the choice for booting but not the hard drive.

Ask me any more questions you may have about this computer. I bet there are instructions for Linux that would also work for Leopard so please tell me if you find something for Linux too.

Thanks!
-Bob
 
In the step one from the link that you used...
Does the Repair Disk say that no problems are found?

Unlikely that any instructions for Linux will help. OS X does not use any form of Linux, but is built on top of Unix.
OS X Disk Utility is a GUI for the Unix diskutil.

Don't be so anxious about reinstalling OS X! If you are booted to the OS X install to try out the Disk Utility, you can just continue on with the OS X install. You would make sure that the hard drive is chosen in the screen where you can choose the drive, then click the Options button, and select the option to Archive & Install, making sure to select the sub-option to save network settings and files. That's a relatively safe method to reinstall OS X, as it will reinstall a fresh set of system software, while retaining the replaced files in a folder named "Previous System".
It will go back a couple of versions of the installed software, so run Software Update when you are done with the Archive & Install, and that will return your system to the most up-to-date version (and should be a best chance for getting the iMac working properly again)
 
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Not to disagree with DeltaMac but you may wish to consider downloading the ComboUpdates rather than letting Software Update update the OS directly.

Usually it is not a problem, but occasionally due to various glitches on the internet, underpants gnomes, and the Illuminati, you end up with a corrupted update. Happened to me once. Happens a few times. I do not know if certain updates are "worse" but I first learned to use the Combo-Updates HERE :)

Simply get on the Interwebs, go to Apple, and find the combo-updates Here.

You can actually do that now, save it to a disk/HD/small bits of lint and directly update your OS after you Archive and Install.

--J.D.
 
Thanks for the advice!
There were no problems found from the disk utility repair.
I noticed that the Leopard live cd had fdisk installed which I remembered was helpful in a similar situation during my Linux days.
I didn't want to reinstall Leopard (even with the archive method) because I thought that I'd have to reinstall each application including ones that require a key inside a box hidden somewhere in the real world. (Excuse the grammar mistakes.)

I will check this thread tomorrow and if there are no further instructions, I shall do the archive install and combo update install. :D

-Bob
 
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