OS will not boot after Snow Leopard Upgrade

I have a MacPro (Intel). I just upgraded to Snow Leopard and everything appeared fine. However, after restarting my computer the OS will not load. A circle with a hash through it replaces the Apple logo and the apple's spinning wheel continues but all drive activity. I have tried to run the install again by forcing the computer to open the dvd drive then booting for the OS DVD but this has not worked. Has anyone experienced this and successfully resolved?

You have a five year old computer, so a failing hard drive at this point is not so strange. You have a couple of options you can try. Start with this one, but if it does not work you will have to erase the hard drive. I hope you have a backup of all your files.
Reinstall OS X without erasing the drive
1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list.  In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive.  If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer.  Proceed with reinstalling OS X.  Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files.  After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.

Similar Messages

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    You have a five year old computer, so a failing hard drive at this point is not so strange. You have a couple of options you can try. Start with this one, but if it does not work you will have to erase the hard drive. I hope you have a backup of all your files.
    Reinstall OS X without erasing the drive
    1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
    Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list.  In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive.  If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
    If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
    2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
    If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer.  Proceed with reinstalling OS X.  Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files.  After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
    Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.

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    Possible scenarios:
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  • I have a MacBook Pro 15" and my warranty just ran out! I partitioned my harddrive into two partitions, one with Snow Leopard and the other with microsoft.This morning I turned on my Macbook Pro and it will not boot into Snow Leopard.

    Good Morning,
    I have a MacBook Pro 15" and my warranty just ran out! I partitioned my harddrive into two partitions, one with Snow Leopard and the other with microsoft.This morning I turned on my Macbook Pro and it will not boot into Snow Leopard. I shut it off took out the battery, reinstalled the battery. Then I put in the Snow Leopard CD and booted up to disk utility and The Snow Leopard partion would not show up?? I do see the microsoft partion.
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    Hey,
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    - Verified the internal hard drive in Disk Utility, all ok.
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    Possible scenarios:
    1: The 10.6.3 SL retail disk is bad, it happens.
    2: Your not using the 10.6.3 SL retail disk but one from another machine which doesn't have the drivers for that machine.
    3: Your optical drive is funky or some other hardware issues.
    4: Your trying to install 10.6 onto a PowerPC based Mac, no can do.
    5: Your not using a wired keyboard for boot key commands, have some other hardware conflicts.
    Possible solutions.
    1: Copy the SL 10.6.3 disk using Disk Utility to another DVD, the error checking may resolve the original disk's issue.
    http://www.brokenhomeboy.co.uk/pierow/blog/2011/10/make-a-bootable-backup-snow-l eopard-install-disc/
    2: Make a SL bootable USB
    http://www.maciverse.com/install-os-x-snow-leopard-from-usb-flash-drive.html
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    If your upgrading to 10.6 to get to 10.6.8 to upgrade to 10.7, be warned of this:
    1: Your 10.5 software will not work in 10.7, no more Rosetta or PPC based code.
    2: Your hardware will not qualify if it's a 32 bit Intel Core Duo, also you may experience slowdowns in performance over 10.6 (10.6 is the fastest OS X version for Intel Macs) in older Intel hardware (I suggest Early 2011 Mac's and later only for Lion)
    3: Mountain Lion 10.8 is reportingly coming out this summer and will not run on a lot of older Intel based Mac's because of heftier graphics requirements.
    4: 10.6 has the widest range of current avaialble software and drivers for third party hardware.
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    Did you follow all of the Software updates all the way to SL 10.6.8? The same thing happened to me when I updated to SL until I updated all the way to 10.6.8.

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    bharry wrote:
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  • Macbook Will Not Boot After Updating Leopard

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