Black box warning on shutting down

[bikerchick]

When I shut down last night before my Mac went off, I got a big black box in the middle of the screen telling me to hold down the power key for a few seconds in 4 different languages. Did that and Mac went off.

Never got that before, what is that?

 

[BlueRevolution]

It's called a kernel panic. It can be indicative of software or hardware problems. As always, make sure you have an up-to-date backup and save frequently, but I wouldn't fret too much about it unless it happens regularly.

 

[bikerchick]

Black box warning on shutting down

Thanks so much BlueRevolution for your answer. I do back up all the time but is there anyway if this does happen frequently that I can run a check on hardware or software.

 

[rdowns]

Open up Console.app (Applications>Ultilities>Console.app) and read the logs. It may point to where the problem is. Or post the results here for us to see.

 

[bikerchick]

Black box warning on shutting down

Here's what my console said this morning when I logged onto it.

Mac OS X Version 10.3.9 (Build 7W98)
2010-02-16 06:52:37 -0500
/Volumes/Firefox/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin: can't map file: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/Flash Player.plugin ((os/kern) invalid argument)


I shut down last night and no kernal....

 

[Cheesybloke]

I've had the black box twice in the space of 2 days and now my MacBook won't even turn on, it just hangs on the grey screen. I haven't got any backups as I purchased it second hand off eBay. Does anyone know of a way by which I could retrieve the data, or restart my laptop.

I'm not bothered if it's knackered but would love a way to retrieve the data.

Any assistance would be much appriciated.

Thanks