Permission repair been running for almost 2 days now? What happens if i stop it? What to do? Please help. Thanks in advance.

Question

My imac wont start up after it asked me to restart the system. Prior to that, a message showed saying i dont have enough space on my start up disk. Now after i restart, it wont go pass the gray screen at start up with the apple logo. I restarted it several times, unplugged power from wall and still wont go pass the gray screen. I am now start up with the installation disk that came with imac and running permission repair( read it from other posts). Permission repair says 8 min till completion and its been running for 2 days now. What else can i do? What happens if i end permission repair and do repair disk? Will disk help solve my start up problem? Please help :( Thanks in advance...

Answer 1

You shouldn't be running Permissions repair booted from the install disc, in the first place. Stop it, shut down and Safe Boot. Hold Shift key down at startup chime. Give it longer to boot than usual. If you can get it to boot up, you must delete some things to make room. Likely candidates are in your home folder, music, movies, documents, pictures. The Safe Boot will, if possible, repair your drive.
If you don't want to lose them completely, you need to move them to an external drive. You should maintain at least 15-20% free of drive capacity.
You will likely have introduced real errors by repairing Permissions booted from the install DVD. You can fix them by running Permissions repair if and when you are in Safe Boot.