BS-O-Death: Snow Leopard (with Theories!)

wijg

I'm getting the blue screen of death every time I try to boot into snow leopard.

This is new to me since everything had been fine since I installed it upon its release.

I'm using a white MacBook (2nd or 3rd gen).



Here's the background:

• I had a kernel panic about a week before this problem started. The panic occurred the instant that I unplugged my USB Logitec mouse. (I had thought that unplugging it would fix its sudden and inexplicable failure to control Expose with the wheel click, but everything crashed instead.)


• Just before my recent BS-o-death troubles, I tried to download ~300 photos taken in the RAW format. Aperture told me that I was about 700 MB shy of what would be required and that it couldn't download. I deleted about 900 MB and then downloaded. All the pictures appeared, but it took forever for all of them to be "processed" in Aperture. I had tried to launch Firefox and surf while it took all that time--and it wouldn't work--so I decided a reboot was in order...


• Before I deleted the ~900 MB, I control-clicked on my drive and "got info". It showed that "everyone" had access to my folders. This freaked me out, and I changed it to "none" or whatever the exact option was.

Also, I have XP on boot camp and it works fine.



I used XP to research my problem and I've tried everything. I've zapped the RAM; I've checked/repaired the disk (Disk Utility says it's fine); I've done the same with the permissions and I get a message that "Warning: SUID file 'System/Library/CoreS...as been modified and will not be repaired". (It says "as", not "has".) Safe boot results in a BS-o-death. Single user mode works, and I did the stuff the net told me to with it, but nothing...



So, I live pretty far from an Apple store, and I'm thinking my options are thus:

• Archive and reinstall--but I'm worried that my photo download (and associated storage limitations) might prevent this from working.


• Use a friend's mac to boot to target disk and then backup my shit.


• And now some unique options that might work but which I don't know how to implement:
  • Delete the photos I downloaded from my camera (using single user mode or Terminal from my install disk). (I still have the photos on my camera card.)
  
  
  • Delete my XP disk partition (also in single user mode or Terminal--somehow). (I've got several Windows machines and don't have anything too important on XP on this laptop, but my laptop is my only mac--and everyday machine.)
  
  
  • Other.
  
  

My feeling from research performed thus far is that an Apple genius could fix me but that I'm otherwise hosed. I'm not expecting miracles in reply to this thread.



However, I would like to keep trying since no Apple store is convenient and because my research hasn't addressed my noted unique ideas for solving the problem. The input of AppleInsider geniuses with respect to that aspect of the puzzle is of particular interest to me.



Thanks for reading and sharing applicable thoughts!

Marvin

Quote:

Originally Posted by WIJG


I control-clicked on my drive and "got info". It showed that "everyone" had access to my folders. This freaked me out, and I changed it to "none" or whatever the exact option was.

Yeah, you shouldn't do that. Everyone doesn't mean everyone on the internet or anything like that, they are mainly just permissions for various types of local user.



Boot into single user mode by holding down command-s. Then type the following:



mount -uw /



hit return to be able to modify your drive. Then type:



chmod a+rx /



hit return. Then type reboot and hit return.

wijg

Marvin, you rock.

Thank you!



(It worked.)