I promise you I tried to follow your guide to SL a few times and it never worked. I also tried to follow your Lion guide using the tutorial involving a DVD version and it kernel panicked the hell out of my pro book (same one you're using) each time i tried it. But alas, finally I had success.
I followed your DVD version tutorial on another site and instead of using the packages there, I just used the installer from here and it finally worked........and it was good. Basically, I used pieces of both tutorials because neither one on its own will work for me. It was looking bad at first, as it seemed I was going to have kernel panic issues at the point where you instruct us to reboot using just -v and then install the pro book installer. I had to fiddle around between using chimera to boot back and using the boot disk to load Lion. Ultimately, I finally got it to go through w/out having a seizure using the boot disk. Once I was in and ran the installer, everything was up and running.
So, for those having kernel panics at the same point, you may try using different boot methods. In fact, I don't even think I used -v boot flag. I just selected Lion and let it ride. Perhaps I was lucky, but that will soon be determined as I'm installing Lion over SL in my other pro book (same model). Additionally, I ran disk utility to repair permissions after I ran the pro book installer and before I did the final reboot.
Thanks for the tutorial. While its not flawless, with a little time and patience, it gets the job done. By far, I have to say you're tutorials are the best. Considering what we're trying to accomplish here, that's saying a lot.
