For those who might have been following the saga of my most recent computer issues, they have not been solved. They were merely deferred in deference to our week on the mainland. We ended up traveling with Meda’s computer, an original MacBook Air. It’s slow but adequate for travel, and it handles blogging better than my iPad. Really.

The issue: After applying Apple’s latest software upgrade to OSX 10.6.7, the computer will no longer boot. It stalls out at the blue screen. It will boot into “Safe Mode” but, as I’ve discovered, there are lots of things that won’t run or just don’t work in said safe mode. For example, I can’t mount the memory card from my camera in order to load any of the photos from our trip. The pictures used this morning were from my iPhone, which I was able to access.

Yes, I have tried booting from the install disk and doing a “clean install” of the system. No luck.

I’ve tried the option-command-p-r. Nada.

The problem, I think, is that I installed a firmware password that prevents thieves from easily bypassing layers of security by booting from an external hard drive. You need to enter a password before the external drive will work. But, and this is a big but, the computer hangs before it reaches the dialog where you would normally enter the password.

And, yes, I’ve run the hardware test and everything is reported to be fine.

So I’ve got an appointment with the Genius Bar tomorrow out in Kahala. I’m hoping they will have the big guns ready to use.