[Bill Laughey]

Hello, I have an imac G5 power pc chip and I recently performed an OS X software update as prompted by my mac - something went wrong during the update and I was told in a box that some folders were put in trash. I re-tried and the same happened. Now when I come to turn on my mac, I get a box with the OS X logo but the progress line makes no progress and OSX doesn't load. Must admit, I have misplaced the original OS X disc to restore with (it runs 10.4 tiger), but I may have access to one, though a bit worried that I may lose what's on my hard drive. Is there a better way forwards? Any suggestions please?

[reader50]

Run Disk Utility or DiskWarrior or TechTool Pro on your iMac G5 first. To clean up any disk damage.

Then apply the Combo updater, which you can get from Apple's Downloads section. Boot from another partition or disk, apply the Combo, and cross your fingers.

[Big Mac]

And before anything else, back your important files up.

It's strange, this is the third or fourth time I have heard a report about Software Update screwing up and alerting the user that it has damaged the installation. Anyone have additional information on this phenomena and what the causes could be?

[Bill Laughey]

Thank you for the advice, that is very helpful and I will do as suggested...