Severe Snow Leopard booting problems

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desertboy

Registered
(macbook pro, 2006, 500gb samsung HD, 2gb ram, Intel processor)

The intention was to hackintosh my Asus 1005p into a mac with snow leopard.

Whilst trying to create a USB startup disk on the Mac, I miss clicked whilst using (I believe) 'netbook installer'. I managed to install some files to MY MAC hard drive and not to the USB stick. Like a fool.

Despite crashing out quickly, I corrupted something on my Macbook pro. I tried repairing and verifying on Disk Utilities but to no avail. The mac froze up and now will only boot up with the Snow Leopard DVD.

I've tried reinstalling SL, twice it says it's reinstalled fine, but the mac still won't boot up alone.

I've repaired the HD in disk utilities, verified etc. It tells me all is fine but won't start up.

Why won't the Mac start up when I have reinstalled the OS?

What can I do ? What have I corrupted?

I may be able to firewire into my mac to retrieve data/delete rogue files if I knew what they were?

Is there anyway I can repair the damage with the Snow L DVD, and avoid a mass time machine reinstall.

Would that solve my issue anyway ?

I really need some help. And yes I know I'm an idiot...!

Ideas gratefully received.

Thanks. Francis
 
You've probably installed some kind of boot loader on your Mac, which needs to be removed.

If you've got a current backup of your Mac (Time Machine), then you'll need to wipe and re-partition the hard drive (not simply reformat, but repartition).

Boot from the Snow Leopard disc, open Disk Utility, select your hard drive (NOT the indented Mac OS X volume below the hard drive), click the "Partition" pane and repartition the drive.

Then, you should be able to restore via Time Machine and be up and booting again.
 
Jeez. That sounds really heavy. I do have a time machine backup but it is my only back up at present and I'm sort of reluctant to scrub the existing hard drive of data.
Tell me, is partioning the same as effectively erasing ? Or is there some way to 'partition' and preserve data?
Thanks
 
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