Macbook Pro keeps going to Mac OS X Utilities on start-up and can't do anything to get past it. I have tried everything.. even installing Mac OS X Lion again and after 6 hours of loading it said it couldn't load! Please help!?

Question

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Answer 1

This worked amazingly!! Thanks for the post awvik360!
I was able to access the internal hard drive and perform a permissions fix through disk utility and re-apply the OS X 10.5.6 combo update on a totally debilitated machine (Mac Pro early 08).
Some clarification though:
{{ I used a MacBook Pro instead of USB/ExternalHD to run a working copy of OS X. }}
~ Just start up the healthy OS X (laptop) in target disk mode (hold 't' key while it powers up)
~ Connect it to the impaired Mac with the highest speed cable available (fire800>fire400>USB)
~ Start up the impaired Mac while holding the alt/option key to select the boot drive.
~ Select the connected OS X (laptop hard disk) and start er up.
~ Run disk utility and you can now use the Fix Permissions option on the impaired Mac's internal hard drive.
~ Run the OS X Combo Update (or presumably other offending update/program) and make sure to change the destination to the internal disk of the impaired Mac
~ Shut down, unplug target disk, start up, and you should be good to go.
I was in some kind of uber-kernel panic and could not start up in safe mode OR from the installation disc, and this worked! Definitely a good emergency procedure to have in your back pocket.
Note: ...target disk pairing must be in this direction. I tried setting up the impaired Mac as target and connecting it to running laptop, and it let me run the install fine, but it didn't fix the problem...must be something with permissions that the impaired Mac needs to install to itself, even if the OS is running on another disk/machine.
-T.