Helen,

You could try recovering using either the "EFI recovery disk" or "Target
Disk Mode" methods, both of which are detailed here:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH149559


(If you're planning to use Target Disk Mode, note the
potentially-counterintuitive arrangement they recommend: booting the
*healthy* machine in TDM, and then booting the afflicted Mac using that
as an external boot volume.)

Please let us know how it goes.


Cheers,

-sth

--
Sam Hooker | [log in to unmask]
Systems Architecture and Administration
Enterprise Technology Services
The University of Vermont


On 20120427 14:42 , Helen Read wrote:
> I have a PGP encrypted Macbook Pro (running Lion 10.7.1). I had
> previously decrypted the disk and uninstalled PGP before upgrading from
> Snow Leopard to Lion and then installing a newer Lion-compatible PGP
> (replacing a version that would not have worked with Lion) and
> re-encrypting the disk.
> 
> I don't use this machine very much, and hadn't had it on in a while.
> Today I turned it on and let it install a bunch of updates for the OS
> and various software, e.g. Java. It downloaded the updates and chugged
> through installing them, the progress bar got to 100%, and then there
> were some messages about writing files etc. Then I got a white screen
> with a spinning wheel, and in place of an Apple logo, there was (is) a
> circle with a line through it (see attached picture). I left for class
> and came back a couple of hours later to find it still in this
> condition. I powered it off and back on, and the Apple logo came up
> briefly, before reverting back to the international symbol for You Have
> Bricked Your Machine above the still spinning wheel.
> 
> Questions --
> 
> 1. Is it completely toasted? (This is more of a rhetorical question.)
> 
> 2. Now what? Take it to the Depot, from whence it came?
> 
> 3. What caused this? Did I accept an update that I wasn't supposed to
> and/or was I supposed to install a newer PGP first?
> 
> 4. Fortunately this not my main computer, and does not have anything of
> importance on it (I have it mostly for learning about Macs, and I
> suppose bricking the thing is part of the learning process). But what is
> a typical user of a PGP encrypted Mac supposed to do about updates?
> Don't ever do them without checking with your IT support person first??
>