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
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