Question

Kernel Panic, crash on startup, can't boot to cd

Asked by: skykuhl

Greetings,

I have a silver mac book 17" that has developed a serious problem.

on startup, just after the grey apple screen it stops with a complex error message writing from the top, down the left hand side of the screen and then in the middle there is a  multilingual message that you have to restart.

The error is a kernel panic but the strangest thing is that I cannot get it to boot to any mac cd/dvd.

I have removed the ram to test it and it seems fine.  I'm not sure what to do to troubleshoot it, especially since I can't boot to the optical drive.  I don't have another mac right now to test if I can boot it as a firewire drive.

Any suggestions?  Thanks very much.

Sky

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2009-08-31 at 18:05:30ID24696632
Topic

Apple Hardware

Participating Experts
3
Points
500
Comments
9

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. kernel panic
    Mandrake7.0 linux-2.2.14 New Downloaded Kernel ide.2.2.14.20000124.patch "ata66" raid0145-19990824-2.2.11 "raid" linux-2.2.14-ow2 "security" compiled fine Boots with kernel panic: B_FREE inserted into queues "Wh...
  2. Kernel Panic
    I've attached our recent kernel panic. Looks like an issue with NFS. I was installing a few servers with Kickstart. Thanks, John

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: pheidiusPosted on 2009-08-31 at 18:17:56ID: 25227846

Well it is clear you have got to find someway to get a bootable firewire partition hooked uo to it as the optimum. I assume you have tried booting into safe mode single user mode etc. http://www.fif3.com/howto/archives/001983.html  This link has not only the key commands for all that but also the order to troubleshoot. IKs there an apple store nearby. Does any institution you know of have a mac that you could go to and use to install a boot able partition on an external firewire drive? What do the fans run when it tried to boot before it kp/s. In any case, running a diagnostic utility from a firewire drive is a must(assuming no other boot method works after the simple reset commands laid out in the link) I assume it is out of apple care warranty. What happens if you remove the hard drive. Does it sound as if the hard drive is spinning up properly before it kp/s.

 

by: skykuhlPosted on 2009-08-31 at 18:26:24ID: 25227892

Thanks for responding,

Yes I have tried booting in safe mode but not single user.  I will look at that link for anything like that I haven't tried.

when it does start it seems and sounds normal until it crashes, which is about 20 seconds.

I think I need to see if it will start as a firewire drive to see if I can recover any data from it.  I am not sure if an error like this could be related to the hard drive.  It does not look like hard drive issues I have seen in the past.

The fact that I can't boot to the cd is the main factor that impeding my progress right now I think.

 

by: nappy_dPosted on 2009-08-31 at 19:30:24ID: 25228151

Try this:

  • start in single user mode by holding cmd+s at startup 
  • When it finishes booting type fsck -f then press enter 
  • When the file system check completes, type exit the computer should complete loading 
This is just to see if the journaled file system needs some fixups.

 

by: pheidiusPosted on 2009-08-31 at 19:33:39ID: 25228167

That fact is the most disturbing about the whole thing actually. Try removing the hard drive and booting form the cd or hold down option key and try to force it to choose the dvd. maybe your c key is sticky. Is this the exact original instal dvd that came with it when it shipped?

 

by: skykuhlPosted on 2009-09-01 at 04:39:20ID: 25230421

Thank you very much for those ideas.

The booting in single user mode didn't make any difference.

Holding down option key while booting was more diagnostic I think.  It doesn't show the optical drives among the choices.  It shows the hard drive only.  So I think that points to a problem with the optical drive as well.

I tried a 10.3 disk that may have come with the computer and a 10.4 disk as well.

I followed a thread to a utility called diskwarrior.  Is this the standard disk repair utility for mac?

I am thinking to to boot as a firewire drive today and also removing the hard drive.

 

by: nappy_dPosted on 2009-09-01 at 04:51:54ID: 25230507

Disk Warrior(for the most part) will do the trick of what  I posted as steps but more from a GUI front end.

One other trick to try if your machine is not getting to the login screen or desktop.  Startup in verbose mode.  that is the CMD+K keys at boot.  This will show you what the BSD kernel is doing at startup.  If there is a problem here, it will be displayed rather than just the multi language message to restart.

 

by: pheidiusPosted on 2009-09-01 at 06:37:08ID: 25231403

If the problem is corruption then Disk Warrior is the most powerful option. You want your copy of DW on the fire wire drive then in order for it to work properly. That is good as when you buy it they will let you download  a copy while you wait for your hard copy. Generally if DW won't fix it, nothing will; though once Drive Genius fixed a Disk that DW gave up on.

 

by: lloydforth1Posted on 2009-10-23 at 04:47:00ID: 25643417

You can get this problem with a disk I/O error so do as nappy d says and go into Verbose mode , i thought that was CMD + V  not K and check ALL the text for clues

 

by: nappy_dPosted on 2009-10-23 at 05:51:21ID: 25643833

Yes you are correct :)  I was thinking of the connect to window for some odd reason.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...