HELP - login fails

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Please help.

This morning my iMac with Snow Leaopard worked fine. I shutdown and went to work, came back, switched on and it does not log me in any more.

At first it failed to boot correctly - stopping at the blue screen. I rebooted and it went to the login prompt. As I am the only user, it usually doesn't do that - it logs straight in. It will not go past the login prompt. There is no password, so I click on continue and it seems to be trying to login, but then comes back to the login prompt.

I rebooted with the SL Install Disk and repaired the disk. The repair found file and directory errors, which it corrected - ending with a successful repair.

Now it boots up, but still will not go past the login prompt.

I have managed to get in by booting from an external partition created with SuperDuper! (thanks again to SuperDuper!). Unfortunately, I do not have a backup which is anything like uptodate, except the Time Machine ones.

Please advise. How should I repair my ID or permissions or whatever, so I can get back in to the correct partition without losing any information (or as little as possible?

The internal disk is readable, so I am hoping the damage is not too serious. I am just worried that my ham-fisted attempts to repair it will cause more damage.

Needless to say I have been planning to do a new backup for days, but needed to install a new external disk to make room. Of course I never quite got around to it. :(
 
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Well since you have a bootable copy on the external drive and can access the internal drive from that, I'd just copy over to the external drive whatever you need backed up, then wipe the internal drive and reinstall Snow Leopard.
 
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I don't really want to do that.

Is there any way to repair the login please? :(
 
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Very odd.

I backed the main disk up to an external one using SuperDuper!

Then I tried booting off that - it works and logs in!! :eek:


I also tried doing a Repair Permissions - it reported that /usr/share/derby has the wrong permissions. It fixed this but still says the same again each time I run the repair.

It also says SUID file System/Library/CoreS has changed and will not be repaired. I can't find a file with that name but there is a folder called CoreServices - could it be that?

Any thoughts please?

Reinstall over the top perhaps? Copy that folder from another partition?
 
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Hmmmm... it sounds like you have some sort of flaky permissions issues or file corruption, although it is odd that cloning the internal drive to the external resulted in a bootable external drive. That seems very much bizarre. You should probably verify that internal disk with Disk Utility before proceeding. Definitely don't simply copy CoreServices back over... the System folder and all its contents are the heart of OS X and not something to tinker with lightly.
 
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I was thinking of restoring CoreServices from a TimeMachine backup - or maybe copying it from the successfully copied external disk version.

Not wise? :Confused:
 
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I was thinking of restoring CoreServices from a TimeMachine backup - or maybe copying it from the successfully copied external disk version.

Not wise? :Confused:

No. I don't believe Time Machine normally backs up the System folder anyway. Eh... if it did and you want to, knock yerself out. If it works, so much the better. If not, then be sure your data is backed up. Still... be sure to check out that drive. It may be an early sign something is going bad.
 
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Using SuperDuper! to clone the drive and then clone it back again seems to have been partially successful. It still doesn't autologin and it lost things like MobileMe settings, but better than nothing. :)

Any way to set it to autologin again please?
 
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Good to hear you are back up. To set auto-login, go to:
System Preferences > Accounts > Login Options
Do the obvious from there.
 
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Thanks - that was turned off for some strange reason. Now reset to auto - will see what happens next time I restart. :)
 

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