If you've been amongst the many thousands of Mac users who suffered a system freeze or crashes after a recent update, there is hope. Most of the news report centered around users who upgraded from 10.5.5 to 10.5.6. As I am still using 10.4.11, I will provide one way to recover your system if you've suffered the Apple version of the Blue Screen of Death.

I had used the typically solid Software Update mechanism to acquire the latest security fixes for my wife's Mac Book. 126MB later, and a quick reboot, and...nothing...watch the little wheel spin for hours...grrr.

Steps taken:

1) Reboot the Mac to the install CD that you darned well better have. ;-) Should be labeled Mac OS X Install Disk 1.

2) On another system download the appropriate stabdalone update package. In my case, as we have an Intel-based Mac Book running 10.4.11 I grabbed Security Update 2008-008 (Client Intel). Once downloaded, I put the package file on a USB drive and headed back to the Mac.

3) Open Terminal on your Mac.

4) Assuming your harddrive is /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD and the security update on the USB drive is /Volumes/Security\ Update\ 2008-008/SecUpd2008-008Intel.pkg execute the following command via Terminal:

/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/usr/sbin/installer -pkg /Volumes/Security\ Update\ 2008-008/SecUpd2008-008Intel.pkg -target /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD

5) Reboot and you should be good to go.