A post over on Unsanity wherein the author (identified as “Rosyna”) describes the prebinding bug in Mac OS X 10.4.
Simply put, this is where Mac OS X finishes installing an update and enters its “Optimizing System Performance” stage. Here, the operating system is prebinding, or looking off memory offsets of symbols in the operating systems’ libraries before a program is launched and won’t have to search for these offsets later on (whenever I’m installing an update and it takes a while with someone looking over my shoulder while the Mac reaches this stage, I tell them this is important. And not to interrupt. Ever.)
The “not touching the Mac” part might be just that critical. According to Rosyna’s post, Mac OS X features a bug wherein if multiple processes are prebinding at a given time, it’s possible for a system’s file system to completely zero itself out.
The best way around this: let the “Optimize System Performance” process run to its conclusion and don’t launch any applications during this time. The piece also discusses workarounds in case the system happens to zero itself out.
If you’ve had any experience with this or advice to offer on prebinding under Mac OS X, let us know.

A post over on Unsanity wherein the author (identified as “Rosyna”) describes the prebinding bug in Mac OS X 10.4.
Simply put, this is where Mac OS X finishes installing an update and enters its “Optimizing System Performance” stage. Here, the operating system is prebinding, or looking off memory offsets of symbols in the operating systems’ libraries before a program is launched and won’t have to search for these offsets later on (whenever I’m installing an update and it takes a while with someone looking over my shoulder while the Mac reaches this stage, I tell them this is important. And not to interrupt. Ever.)
The “not touching the Mac” part might be just that critical. According to Rosyna’s post, Mac OS X features a bug wherein if multiple processes are prebinding at a given time, it’s possible for a system’s file system to completely zero itself out.
The best way around this: let the “Optimize System Performance” process run to its conclusion and don’t launch any applications during this time. The piece also discusses workarounds in case the system happens to zero itself out.
If you’ve had any experience with this or advice to offer on prebinding under Mac OS X, let us know.