[X4U] 10.4.7 upgrade problem

[eleventhvolume]

Many thanks for your advice Philip, much appreciated.

> Boot from your install disc or another drive and run Disk Utility.
> Apple recommends DU (without explanation as far as I can tell) over
> fsck for Tiger.

I tried this, DU did a couple of repairs, I ran again and then it said disk
fine.

> EFI is the new Intel boot firmware/BIOS. I haven't looked into boot
> camp, but if you have it installed maybe this is part of it?
I haven't installed Boot Camp at all.
 
> Anyway, after getting your disk to pass Disk Utility cleanly download
> the combo updater and redo the upgrade.
Done. 
 
> If this fails then you may need to backup as best you can, reinstall
> from scratch, and then try Migration Assistant if you backed up the
> entire HD instead of just your data.
I think that's what I'm going to have to do.

Oddly, I switched to a clean account, started up Disk Utility and the
disk0s1 wasn't there - it only appears in my account. Likewise, Activity
Monitor displays all my processes in the other account, but fails to do so
via my own admin account. When I do a safe boot, the disk0s1 doesn't appear
in Disk Utility, but Activity Monitor continues to not display my processes.
It's a mystery. 
 
> Another possibility is to use something like Onyx to clean out all of
> the system caches.
I tried that too, but without success. Looks like a wipe/install/migrate is
my only option. Many thanks again for your suggestions.

All the best, Colin.