OSX Kernal Panics galore!

[chimpleton]

I wonder if any of you fellas can help me out? Got a 17" 1.33 Powerbook and can't get it to boot up. I've tried everything - can't even boot it in safe mode or from a disc, just kernal panic everytime. I've removed the extra ram so it's now stock. Is there any way i can boot from an external drive without first booting the internal one?
Any help would be appreciated 'cause it's driving me nuts

[reynaud]

This seems to be a problem with both OS X 10.4.4 and 10.4.5. I've had the same issue and reinstalled 10.4.3 which so far is the most stable version of Tiger. What version are you running? Panther or Tiger and what update version?

cheers,
Reynaud

[chimpleton]

Can't remember - maybe 10.4.3. Got a G5 too so don't use the PB too often. Can't reinstall any software though 'cause the Panic happens before i get to the installer window!!

[reynaud]

When you startup off disc (Tiger Install Disc) how far do you get before the kernel panic? What error message do you get? Do you get something like:

Mac name + user: dev/console : Device does not support IO

[Geert van den Berg]

You said that you also have a G5, you could connect your Powerbook to your G5 via firewire and then at boot press T on the Powerbook, this will make the Powerbook boot up in Target mode, and then it act's just like a removable firewire drive. Now you can copy any valuable data and make a backup.

Also you can now make a clone of your G5 OS to the Powerbook if you don't want to go through the hassle of reinstalling all your software, though your G5 might have different software set than the Powerbook.

Best thing to do is a clean install on the Powerbook and then make a clone of a clean OS. In its most stable version, could be 10.4.3. That's also what I am still running on. And maybe also make a clone with some apps installed. Then it's relatively easy to put this on your machine in case something goes wrong again.

If you already got another firewire drive with a OS on it you can bypass the boot from the internal drive by holding: option-command-shift-delete

Or even simpler holding 'alt' will enable you to choose which OS you want to run. It should find another OS if it's connected to your Mac. But this wouldn't work if there's something wrong with your bootloader software, in which case you'd still need a fresh install.

[chimpleton]

Hi Geert, thanks for the response.
I'd already tried to use the PB as a target disk from my G5, but guess what, it causes a Panic on my G5 as soon as the desk top appears. I'd also tried to boot from a separate, firewire OS disk but again, Panic.

I'd LOVE to just wipe the HD and start afresh but i'm beginning to think that it must be kaput and needs replacing....

[jdunn]

Originally Posted by chimpleton

I'd already tried to use the PB as a target disk from my G5, but guess what, it causes a Panic on my G5 as soon as the desk top appears.

What do you mean by "as soon as the desk top appears"? The target machine should show a light blue screen with a large yellow firewire symbol on it's screen.

The G5 should already be booted up before you turn on the target machine while holding down it's T key.

Or does it crash your G5 Finder when you pull up that drive?

Sorry if this isn't helpful, but what you said about the desktop made me think that you might possibly be doing something wrong with the Firewire disk mode.

Also I'm sure you've tried stuff like removing the battery and putting it back, pushing the little PMU reset button on the battery, booting from Install disc while holding down Option or C, removing any third party mouse or peripheral, etc....

[FFTT]

There's a wealth of help over at Macrumors.com.

I think you may have a failing hard drive, but even with factory RAM it could be bad RAM or improperly seated RAM.

While you're there also check your airport card connection.

Otherwise, I would try an archive install until you retrieve any data you need, then run a complete fresh install.

If your system comes back, but then begins to have trouble again, it's probably the hard drive, so I would be very careful about keeping any critical data on there without a daily back-up.

You can find directions to replace and upgrade the hard drive yourself at PBfixit.com

[chimpleton]

Originally Posted by jdunn

What do you mean by "as soon as the desk top appears"? The target machine should show a light blue screen with a large yellow firewire symbol on it's screen.

The G5 should already be booted up before you turn on the target machine while holding down it's T key.

Or does it crash your G5 Finder when you pull up that drive?

Sorry if this isn't helpful, but what you said about the desktop made me think that you might possibly be doing something wrong with the Firewire disk mode.

Also I'm sure you've tried stuff like removing the battery and putting it back, pushing the little PMU reset button on the battery, booting from Install disc while holding down Option or C, removing any third party mouse or peripheral, etc....

Hi Jason, yeah it crashes the G5 finder when i pull the drive up. I've also done all those things you mention but to no avail....gotta be a dicky drive

[chimpleton]

Originally Posted by FFTT

There's a wealth of help over at Macrumors.com.

I think you may have a failing hard drive, but even with factory RAM it could be bad RAM or improperly seated RAM.

While you're there also check your airport card connection.

Otherwise, I would try an archive install until you retrieve any data you need, then run a complete fresh install.

If your system comes back, but then begins to have trouble again, it's probably the hard drive, so I would be very careful about keeping any critical data on there without a daily back-up.

You can find directions to replace and upgrade the hard drive yourself at PBfixit.com

Problem is that i can't load up the install disk to be able to archive or even reformat the disk. As soon as it starts to read the disk the Panic sets in

[FFTT]

Try this per my learned advisor

Turn OFF PB
Turn ON G5
Connect F/W cable.

Hold down the PB's T key
then press power.
keep holding the PB's T key until blue screen appears.

Once the blue screen with the F/W logo appears,
you should see the PB's HD on your G5's desktop.

From the G5
then run disk utility and then Alsoft Disk Warrior.

If the drive won't repair with Disk Warrior* then run Data Rescue II from your G5 and try to grab as much data as you can.

*Disk Warrior Alsoft support will also walk you through a few steps to attempt
a repair.

To boot the PB off an external F/W drive...
PB OFF
HD OFF
connect F/W cable
turn ON F/W HD
Hold down option key, then turn on PB
Hold till blue screen appearswith bootable disks

Click the name of the F/W HD
click the arrow on the right
it will boot from that drive

run disk utility, then Disk Warrior

Hope this helps.

Good luck

BTW, my friend also mentioned
that it sounds like you're connecting through the network and that's crashing your G5.

[jdunn]

I think he's already got Firewire disk mode working, but the Finder crashes on the G5 when trying to access the Powerbook drive.

It sounds to me like the drive has a corrupted directory and probably at least one bad sector. My 15" Powerbook drive is messed up too, but luckily I just got Apple Care activated. This reminds me to bring it to the Apple store this week.

Have you tried this yet? Put the Powerbook in Firewire disk mode, and then instead of trying to access the drive, run Disk Utility. Or is that what you're trying to do? Disk Utility may be able to repair the drive if it can mount it. If it can't mount you may have another Finder crash.

[FFTT]

The G5 should not be crashing at all.

If he can get the drive to show up on his G5, then most likely Disk Warrior can repair it.

I've had failures before that Disk Utility was unable to solve, so Disk Warrior and Data Rescue II saved my ass.

If there's nothing important on the PB's drive, then you could also attempt a reformat
running Disk Utility from the G5.

[Geert van den Berg]

Originally Posted by jdunn

Have you tried this yet? Put the Powerbook in Firewire disk mode, and then instead of trying to access the drive, run Disk Utility. Or is that what you're trying to do? Disk Utility may be able to repair the drive if it can mount it. If it can't mount you may have another Finder crash.

How would you do this? When you connect it to the firewire port it will instantly try to access the drive as far as I know.

[Geert van den Berg]

Originally Posted by FFTT

The G5 should not be crashing at all.

It should not, but it is. G5's are very vulnerable to peripherals.

[FFTT]

You also might try removing the factory RAM, install the 3rd party RAM and see if she'll boot.


When entering Target mode, you have to wait till you see the blue screen holding down the T key long enough til the F/W logo starts bouncing.

Hopefully, between these suggestions, you'll find a solution.

[chimpleton]

[quote=jdunn]I think he's already got Firewire disk mode working, but the Finder crashes on the G5 when trying to access the Powerbook drive.

This is correct. The G5 won't even mount the PB hard drive before Panic sets in on the G5.

Geert is right, you can't do anything with it untill it has tried to access the drive.
I would love to get the drive showing on the desktop and let Diskwarrior do it's magic, but chance would be a fine thing!!

Have also removed the factory ram and replaced with the 3rd party ram but, again, nada.

I think, like Jason said, that this drive is buggered and needs to be binned and a new one installed.

[FFTT]

Well even if you could repair the current HD, you won't really have much confidence
in it holding up, so maybe the replacement is warranted.

As long as you've followed step by step directions trying to get the volume to show up on your G5, then I suppose the drive is wasted.

If you have the Disk Warrior bootable CD, that might be another method to get the PB back

[jdunn]

I meant that before clicking on the drive in the finder window, just run Disk Utility. I do realize that the drive mounts automatically (if it can).

You don't have a 5400 rpm drive in the 17" Powerbook, do you? The one that's gone bad in my 15" is a 5400 rpm. Any drive can go bad of course, but these laptop drives seem a little less robust. It's probably becuase of the lack of ventilation, but it could be something about the construction of a smaller drive that makes it more prone to fail.

It does sound like this machine needs to go to Apple for repair. If it repeatedly fails to mount AND crashes your G5 everytime, it may be beyond anything you can do for it.

Then again, maybe another G4 could mount it and it's not compatible with the G5 as mentioned above. I suppose that's possible, though improbable.

[FFTT]

I'm not sure if I understand this correctly.

Is the G5 crashing when you try to open the PB's volume or is it
crashing before you even have target mode activated?


If you follow the procedure as outlined above, does the PB's volume show up on your G5's desktop?

If so, then do not click trying to open the volume.

Open disk utility from the G5 and attempt to repair the PB volume.

I assume both computers are running the same OS version right?

Sorry hard to fix stuff when I can't see what's happening in front of me.