[No Time 4 Love Dr. Jones]

Copied and pasted:

"it will boot up and show me my name, but when i enter my pwd, it goes to a DOS-like screen and asks for Login ID/pwd. i've tried every combo possible and nuthin'. it gives a msg about "audit" something or other"

Anyone know what this means? She is using Panther with all updates.

EDIT #1: She also added:

"it prompted me for some updates and i ran those, then it prompted for more, so when i went to run those, it seemed to hang up on the first one (something Java related - relatively small size). i pushed the stop button, and it said "Stopping after this one" but it wouldn't stop after like an hour, so I force quit it. then when i logged off, it seemed to take FOREVER, and now i can't log back on"

EDIT #2: Here is the error.

"login incorrect, then "Login: Could not determine audit condition" then goes back to regular login screen"

[wataru]

She screwed up her system by forcing the update to stop. I recommend an archive install.

[Tsilou B.]

There is also a solution involving single user mode. Basically you have to download the Mac OS X 10.3.9 combo updater on another Mac and copy the pkg file from the disk image to the hard drive of the "broken" Mac, e.g. using FireWire target disk mode. Copy it directly to the root of the boot drive and don't place it in a folder. Then boot up the Mac while pressing Command-S. When the command prompt appears, type

mount -uw /

and press the return key. Then type

installer -pkg /MacOSXUpdateCombo10.3.9.pkg -target /

where "MacOSXUpdateCombo10.3.9.pkg" is the exact name of the pkg file you copied. Then wait till the installer is finished and reboot by entering

shutdown -r now

Thereafter everything should work again. However, if she has no second Mac she could use to download the file and copy it over, it's probably better (and easier) to reinstall Mac OS X with the "Archive and Install" option, as wataru has said.

[Tsilou B.]

double post, I'm sorry.

[No Time 4 Love Dr. Jones]

Thanks for the replies, all.

However, when she tried the Archive and Install, she received this error.

"The underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972)"

Could the hard disk be failing?

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by No Time 4 Love Dr. Jones

Could the hard disk be failing?

Could be. I hope she has a backup.

Does Disk Utility repairing report any errors? What does S.M.A.R.T. status of the drive say (Disk Utility, select drive (not volume) on the panel on the left side and press the Info button)?

[Philip J. Fry]

Originally Posted by No Time 4 Love Dr. Jones

Thanks for the replies, all.

However, when she tried the Archive and Install, she received this error.

"The underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972)"

Could the hard disk be failing?

That or the hard drive can't be repaired with Disk Utility. This is where Disk Warrior will help, and also a backup. If she has a backup, just erase and install.