Expert: Rick Schultz - 3/28/2004

Question
I mistakenly trashed mach_kernel, mach, and mach.sym
Files while in OS9. I had an aquaintences iMac here to update
OS & AppleWorks while I was doing my own and drew mach_kernel,
mach, and mach.sym off the iMac to my mac in Target mode.
As I had just ran all these updaters I did not have my disk backed up.
Ran Norton Utilities vs 8.0, DiscWarrior vs 30 and Disk utility
OS 10.2.4.  None of these utilities detected that the Mach_kernal
had come unglued ! None of which allowed my to boot into X.
I had to use the OS 9.1 install disk to boot at all.
Is my only option to reinstall OSX 10.2.4 and rerun the upgraders
again? A daunting task for the computer illiterate.
Is there another Utility  that could reconnect mach_kernal so it
would again boot into X.
There should be some sort of warning on the installer discs.
Oh well. Live and learn.
Thanks. Lee

Answer
Lee,

Use the OS X CD as the startup disk.

When it gets to the point of choosing the volume to install on, choose your OS X volume. Do a repair or upgrade, whichever is available. This will find which files are missing and replace/install them.

-Rick