Ugh! UniBeast Rendered my System IMPOTENT

Finally got 10.6.8 working after at least 50 hours of mind-wrenching toil and deep, severe self doubt.

Then I got bold and tried to upgrade to Lion.

First, I had no luck because of the "system not recognized" error when I tried to log in to App store. After reading numerous posts here, plus multiple reboots and using Applejack to clear caches and rebuild permissions, I finally was able to d/l the App Store Lion app.

I didn't do any physical moving of anything after the 3+GB Lion app was d/l. I went straight to Disk Utility, formatted an 8GB flash drive according to the instructions, then ran UniBeast. Got a "Successful" install to the USB drive so I rebooted, got my LION USB drive to show up in Chimera, selected it; it booted up and gave me the Lion Install screen.

Once I got the Lion Install screen, I hit the agreement window, then CONTINUE. When the screen came up with the available places to install, I clicked "CUSTOMIZE" like I usually do to see if I could de-select anything. But my CUSTOMIZE window was EMPTY. Seemed weird.

I then went to the straight INSTALL and it began. It started at "36 minutes remaining," but then the progress bar quickly zoomed to the right: "20 minutes remaining." Then, just as fast, "9 minutes remaining." Then, all the way to the right with the error message:

INSTALL FAILED. PLEASE CONTACT THE SOFTWARE MANUFACTURER.

I looked at the log and it said that it was unable to extract anything from the base system package. Further down, it said it could also NOT RE-BLESS my original system folder.

What happened? I thought UniBeast said Lion installed successfully to my USB drive...

WHAT'S WORSE, now my boot drive DOES NOT EVEN SHOW UP.

Please, please, someone. I can't lose my boot drive again for the umpteenth time. Give me a bless command that works. did not work.

I foolishly did not back up my working system before attempting this supposedly guaranteed-easy upgrade, and i CANNOT AFFORD to have to REINSTALL EVERYTHING again from square one. I simply don't have ANOTHER 50 HOURS to dedicate to this project.

Any help would be appreciated. TIA

Where you screwed up.
When you downloaded the app, there magically appeared in your dock an icon for Lion. This icon, when you click on it, installs the Install Lion App in your Applications folder. This must be done before you try to create the UniBeast USB installer.
Without doing this first, there is nothing for Unibeast to work with to put the kernel and other files on your USB installer.

Going Bald said:

Where you screwed up.
When you downloaded the app, there magically appeared in your dock an icon for Lion. This icon, when you click on it, installs the Install Lion App in your Applications folder. This must be done before you try to create the UniBeast USB installer.
Without doing this first, there is nothing for Unibeast to work with to put the kernel and other files on your USB installer.

Click to expand...

Thanks. Actually, that icon AUTOMATICALLY launched after the App Store d/l was successful. I specifically QUIT the app after it launched and asked me if I wanted to install Lion. Then, I looked in my Applications folder and sure enough, the 3.+GB Lion Install.app was there. That's why I mentioned that I didn't do any physical moving of anything. But if, like you said, UniBeast didn't put the kernel and other files on the USB installer, then what was it doing for a good 12-15 minutes, after which I got a "Successful" install message?

Again, I successfully booted off the Lion USB drive and got to the Lion install screen. But when the Lion installer failed to extract anything from the USB drive when I tried to install, why did it screw up my Boot drive so that it's no longer bootable (or even visible to Chimera)? What did it change? What could've changed if it wasn't able to extract the base system package from the USB drive and start the install?? Is there a way I can recover or recreate my original boot drive settings?

FYI, the drive is still there according to BIOS, and even when I launch the Terminal at the Lion install screen. That's why I am trying to re-bless it...