Macbook wont load up after latest apple update

Question

Whilst updating the software today to the latest version i got a message saying that there had been a problem and it needed to restart. I did this and now it will not load past the white screen which usually has an apple logo showing but now has the circle with a line through it! over the top of this there are lines of code in black and white!
When i tried to load the recovery disk whilst pressing "C" it gets to the white screen with the apple logo but beeps 3 times in a row on loop!
I have after market RAM installed and I have removed and re-seated this with no change. I have also reinstalled the apple RAM which has had no affect.
Any help would be very much appreciated.

Answer 1

I am having the same problem.  After running and installing App Store software update an error message appeared after about 7 minutes saying the installation failed and could not continue.  A restart came to to login screen. Adding my account password spun the circle a few moments then the screen flashed and no login.  I tried again.  Tried the guest account.  Tried zapping PRAM.  Tried recovery partition to repair disk permissions.  I was able to get an error message to get a new hard drive from a failed disk repair.
2.5 Ghz MacBook Pro 15" A1260 titanium pre-unibody.
Tried safe mode. Get only about 30 seconds of spinning, 1/4 on the progress bar, and then shut down.
I doubt it is a bad disk. I say that because my Windows partition still boots normally using Option at startup. 
I read several forums and posts.  Found something about a possible glitch with video card switching permissions.  Cannot get into any account to change permissions, so I don't know if that is possible at this point. 
Found something to startup in single user Command + S mode and check disk persmissions.  Something about the 8th character ending in "r" seemed to be correct.  A /fsck -fy resulting in an error at catalog, if I recall.  A bad hard drive could be possible, but seems really unlikely as I have had no recent disk issues and the Bootcamp partition works fine.
There are a growing number of similar posts on no reboot after update or no login, etc.  I doubt sending people out for new drives or kernel panics is the issue.  Something with the install failed and is preventing reboot.  Any help would be appreciated.  I'm on a different computer as I cannot startup in any manner.