Can't boot after 10.6.6 update

Question

I see lots of new complaints here about system slowness, apps not working, etc., but after updating my MacBook Pro from 10.6.5 to 10.6.6, I can no longer boot into OS X.
If I do a verbose boot, I see some complaints regarding VMware's vmnet adapter:
vmnet: Invalidating peer info for hub: 0, port: 0
vmnet: VNetUser-IfFree: freeing user If at [mem-address]
... and then it goes no further. I have let this run for over an hour without any progress.
I've also booted the install DVD and repaired permissions and the disk, but that didn't help.
I've also booted via "safe mode" (Shift on boot), which showed an additional progress bar at the bottom of the boot screen for a while and then went back to the spinning progress circle. This too has run for over an hour now.
Don't know what else to try at this point. Of course, I had written a presentation in Keynote that is due in an hour, and this is my only Mac.

Answer 1

Sorry ... what?!? I'm not sure from where you made this assumption, but of course I keep data back-ups; and I'm not sure what you classify as a "production machine", but I certainly don't consider a laptop a production system (again: my data is safely backed up).
If you have a presentation due in an hour, which is what your post said, surely you anticipate the ability to access that presentation in an hour, and not be beset by issues resulting from updates, hardware issues, etc, I would classify that as a production machine, because time sensitive access is a necessity. One should not be shooting oneself in the foot by modifying what is working until one is absolutely certain that it won't affect their ability to access time sensitive data. Since you are backed up, the issue presented here, is one of a machine which may need directory repair, or to be cleaned up so it isn't too full that the machine can't boot, or one of not having compatible firmware or drivers with the new operating system. Whichever, a recovery of a backup would allow one to continue as if no update had happened, it would also allow one to recover to another hard drive if the hard drive is dying, it would also allow one if the directory is too badly munged to recover data to another hard drive, but whichever the issue, you have within your power the ability to recover from this situation. To repair the directory I give directions here*:
http://www.macmaps.com/directoryfaq.html
If it can't be repaired, that's when you have to assume the drive may be dying.
If it can be repaired, but won't boot, that's when you assume that some driver was installed that won't work with the new operating system, and you'll have to downgrade.
Whichever the scenario, your backup saves you a lot of trouble.
- * Links to my pages may give me compensation. I merely have to say this whenever posting links to my site. That's just a given because of the terms of this forum.