Kernel panic--can't boot up--please help!

[MacTheKnife]

Hello everyone,

I'm in a bad jam with my 12" G4 PB (1.33 MHz, 80 GB, superdrive). I installed the latest security update last night, and after that my computer stopped booting up. My computer has been acting strangely lately, with very long beach ball spinning at times, but I have been able to get it back to "normal" by using repair permissions. In fact I had run repair permissions just prior to the security update.

When I turn the power button on, the gray screen and Apple logo come on, and the small circular clock icon appears for less than a second when I get the multi-lingual display of "You need to restart your computer. Hold down the...."

I have scoured the message boards and have tried a few remedial actions such as removing my 3rd party RAM and resetting PRAM and NVRAM. I am able to boot from the CD start up disk but when I get into Disk Utility, the icon for my hard drive (named "Macintosh HD") is faded. I am able to perform a disk repair (which I did, no problems), but the "Repair permissions" and "Verify permissions" buttons are faded out so I can't select them.

I have tried booting up into Single User Mode so I could run fsck, but after the computer starts displaying white text on a black screen, it displays the message "Panic: We are hanging here..." I don't know how to copy that screen of text here so I'll just type some things I see that might be pertinent:

jnl: open: journal magic is bad (0xe284b296 != 0x4a4e4c78)
hft: late jnl init: failed to open/create the journal (retval 0)
nfs_boot: networking is not intitialized
panic(cpu 0): nfs_boot_init failed with 6

No debugger configured - dumping debug information

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 7.9.0

I'll type more if someone needs more info.

I don't have another Mac handy to do the firewire connection to back up my hard drive, but I'm afraid that if Disk Utility can't read the disk then connecting it to another Mac will not allow me to read it either.

I would really like to avoid erasing the disk if I can somehow save the data on it first. If you can help I'd really appreciate it!

Thanks
😱

P.S. I was wondering if I could partition my hard drive in Disk Utility and then install a new Mac OS on that partition to boot up, and then somehow access my data on the other partition. Would that work?

 

[XNine]

That's rough times. HAve you put your 3rd party ram back in and pulled the Apple RAM out?

If the HD is greyed out it means it's a volume that can be read or written (generally). This might be an HD failure, sad to say.

Let us know what else you find out.

 

[Heb1228]

Partitioning a disk means you lose the data on it. at least with disk utility. I think partition magic can do it for PCs, I'm not sure if there is anything like that for Macs.

Since you don't have access to another Mac, I'm not sure what to tell you at this point. This is why the first rule in computers is backup, backup, backup.

Do you have an external firewire hard drive? You could install OS X on that and boot from it. It sound to me like the first thing you need to try is to reinstall OS X, the question is how you are going to get your data off before you do it. Without access to another Mac or a firewire hard drive, I'm not sure its possible.

 

[MacTheKnife]

That's rough times. HAve you put your 3rd party ram back in and pulled the Apple RAM out?

If the HD is greyed out it means it's a volume that can be read or written (generally). This might be an HD failure, sad to say.

Let us know what else you find out.

Thanks for the response.

I did put the 3rd party RAM back in but I never pulled the Apple RAM out.

My hunch is that this is a software problem. The reason I think this is because in the past few months I have had a problem with the computer response becoming extremely sluggish at times where I would literally have to wait minutes for an application to close. Each instance after repairing permissions, the computer would run normally again. I too suspected that the hard drive might be failing, but every time I ran repair disk, the result was always nothing was wrong. In fact I installed a free software called S.M.A.R.T. after my last repair permissions--it's software for detecting potential hard drive failure, but it never indicated something was wrong physically with the drive.

 

[MacTheKnife]

Partitioning a disk means you lose the data on it. at least with disk utility. I think partition magic can do it for PCs, I'm not sure if there is anything like that for Macs.

Since you don't have access to another Mac, I'm not sure what to tell you at this point. This is why the first rule in computers is backup, backup, backup.

Do you have an external firewire hard drive? You could install OS X on that and boot from it. It sound to me like the first thing you need to try is to reinstall OS X, the question is how you are going to get your data off before you do it. Without access to another Mac or a firewire hard drive, I'm not sure its possible.

Thanks for the response.

I didn't realize partitioning the disk would mean losing all of the data on it. In Disk Utility, there is a function that allows you to partition the hard drive. The way it's set up, it appears as though you can resize the existing partition and add a new partition, but perhaps I'm mistaken.

 

[mrichmon]

I have tried booting up into Single User Mode so I could run fsck, but after the computer starts displaying white text on a black screen, it displays the message "Panic: We are hanging here..." I don't know how to copy that screen of text here so I'll just type some things I see that might be pertinent:

jnl: open: journal magic is bad (0xe284b296 != 0x4a4e4c78)
hft: late jnl init: failed to open/create the journal (retval 0)
nfs_boot: networking is not intitialized
panic(cpu 0): nfs_boot_init failed with 6

No debugger configured - dumping debug information

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 7.9.0

I'll type more if someone needs more info.

That seems to indicate that your file system journal is bad. The journal is used to temporarily store data before it is written to its final location on disk. If you can boot without journalling turned on then you shouldn't have any problems in theory.

Have you tried starting the computer while holding down the shift key to boot into safe mode? I seem to recall that safe mode will boot without journaling and repair any journaling problems. You need to turn on the computer and hold down the shift key before the grey screen is shown.

If that doesn't work and you have an external drive that you can reformat then you could install OS X on the external drive, boot from the external drive and copy your data off your system disk. Once you have your data off then you can reinstall OS X on your system disk and copy your data back.

 

[yenko]

Thanks for the response.

I did put the 3rd party RAM back in but I never pulled the Apple RAM out.

My hunch is that this is a software problem. The reason I think this is because in the past few months I have had a problem with the computer response becoming extremely sluggish at times where I would literally have to wait minutes for an application to close. Each instance after repairing permissions, the computer would run normally again. I too suspected that the hard drive might be failing, but every time I ran repair disk, the result was always nothing was wrong. In fact I installed a free software called S.M.A.R.T. after my last repair permissions--it's software for detecting potential hard drive failure, but it never indicated something was wrong physically with the drive.

Your problem is the RAM you installed.

Remove the 3rd party RAM.

Run fsck

If fsck returns other than OK, run it until it returns OK

Reboot

Repair permissions until the results are the same twice.

If you're running Tiger, make SURE that "journaling" is enabled. Check for that in disk utility. Do this only after you have done the above.

Zoom Zoom!! 😀

Keep us posted 🙄

 

[MacTheKnife]

That seems to indicate that your file system journal is bad. The journal is used to temporarily store data before it is written to its final location on disk. If you can boot without journalling turned on then you shouldn't have any problems in theory.

Have you tried starting the computer while holding down the shift key to boot into safe mode? I seem to recall that safe mode will boot without journaling and repair any journaling problems. You need to turn on the computer and hold down the shift key before the grey screen is shown.

If that doesn't work and you have an external drive that you can reformat then you could install OS X on the external drive, boot from the external drive and copy your data off your system disk. Once you have your data off then you can reinstall OS X on your system disk and copy your data back.

Thanks for the response.

Yes I have tried starting in safe mode by holding down the shift key, but I still get the kernel panic. Is there a way to turn off journaling?

If I try the external drive, how would I copy data off my laptop's hard drive? I assume I need to connect the laptop to the external drive by USB or firewire, but will this give me access to files on my non-booting hard drive? I guess I need to try it to find out, eh? I'm still trying to figure out why Disk Utility run from the CD drive recognizes the presence of my hard drive but won't let me repair permissions, even though it allows me to run repair disk.

 

[Heb1228]

Thanks for the response.

Yes I have tried starting in safe mode by holding down the shift key, but I still get the kernel panic. Is there a way to turn off journaling?

If I try the external drive, how would I copy data off my laptop's hard drive? I assume I need to connect the laptop to the external drive by USB or firewire, but will this give me access to files on my non-booting hard drive? I guess I need to try it to find out, eh? I'm still trying to figure out why Disk Utility run from the CD drive recognizes the presence of my hard drive but won't let me repair permissions, even though it allows me to run repair disk.

This won't work with a USB drive, just Firewire. You just go through the normal installation process, except you choose to install on the Firewire drive instead of the normal boot drive. After you've installed it on the Firewire drive, you can boot from that one and see if you can access your files to back them up and perhaps see if you can repair your original hard drive.

 

[yenko]

Thanks for the response.

Yes I have tried starting in safe mode by holding down the shift key, but I still get the kernel panic. Is there a way to turn off journaling?

If I try the external drive, how would I copy data off my laptop's hard drive? I assume I need to connect the laptop to the external drive by USB or firewire, but will this give me access to files on my non-booting hard drive? I guess I need to try it to find out, eh? I'm still trying to figure out why Disk Utility run from the CD drive recognizes the presence of my hard drive but won't let me repair permissions, even though it allows me to run repair disk.

You need to pick a plan, follow through on it and see what the results are.

Try not to do a bunch of stuff at once. What you have to do is eliminate a problem so that the next step can be executed.

RAM..........RAM..........Remove the 3rd party RAM. You already said you were having trouble with the machine shortly after you installed the RAM.

It is very possible that the RAM may not be the problem, but until you remove it to resolve the question, the problem may continue.

Remove it, boot to single user, run "fsck -f".

Keep us posted 😀

 

[mad jew]

RAM..........RAM..........Remove the 3rd party RAM.

Just to clarify, I think MacTheKnife has run without the third party RAM and the problems persist so try using just the third party RAM and take out the Apple stuff. There's a chance that the Apple-supplied RAM could be bad.

Also, has the Hardware Test CD/DVD been run yet? It may turn up something.

One final thing. What other peripherals do you have? Things like Bluetooth keyboards and mice, printers, external hard drives and so on can potentially cause such problems. However, I believe this is probably a failing hard drive or RAM related. Still, it may be worthwhile unplugging everything, trying to use a standard Apple keyboard/mouse combination (if you don't already) just to eliminate this as a possibility.

yenko makes an excellent point (as usual) in that you need to do one thing at a time to eliminate possible culprits. 🙂

 

[MacTheKnife]

You need to pick a plan, follow through on it and see what the results are.

Try not to do a bunch of stuff at once. What you have to do is eliminate a problem so that the next step can be executed.

RAM..........RAM..........Remove the 3rd party RAM. You already said you were having trouble with the machine shortly after you installed the RAM.

It is very possible that the RAM may not be the problem, but until you remove it to resolve the question, the problem may continue.

Remove it, boot to single user, run "fsck -f".

Keep us posted 😀

Thanks for the response.

I have had the 3rd party RAM in since I bought it used about 15 months ago. No problems at all for the first year. In any case, I tried all of the steps I mentioned above with the RAM removed and got the same results.

I would love to run fsck but I cannot boot to Single User Mode because the computer experiences the kernel panic. I am holding command and "s" after the gong sound upon booting up but I get the multi-lingual message. If you know how I can run fsck another way, please let me know.

 

[MacTheKnife]

Just to clarify, I think MacTheKnife has run without the third party RAM and the problems persist so try using just the third party RAM and take out the Apple stuff. There's a chance that the Apple-supplied RAM could be bad.

Also, has the Hardware Test CD/DVD been run yet? It may turn up something.

One final thing. What other peripherals do you have? Things like Bluetooth keyboards and mice, printers, external hard drives and so on can potentially cause such problems. However, I believe this is probably a failing hard drive or RAM related. Still, it may be worthwhile unplugging everything, trying to use a standard Apple keyboard/mouse combination (if you don't already) just to eliminate this as a possibility.

yenko makes an excellent point (as usual) in that you need to do one thing at a time to eliminate possible culprits. 🙂

Thanks for the response.

No I have not tried the Hardware Test but I did run Disk Utility and it does allow me to "repair disk", which I did without any problems detected. For the reason that probably lies at the heart of this matter, Disk Utility will not allow me to run repair permissions.

I do not connect my laptop to any peripherals.

Just to reiterate, although the problem may be due to a failing hard drive, I have run "repair disk" many times without any problem detected, and I also installed and ran S.M.A.R.T. (software designed to detect imminent hard drive failure) without any problems detected. Which leads me to suspect that this is a software problem.

Update: I connected my laptop to my friend's Mac via firewire, and my friend's computer does not recognize my hard drive although it does recognize the start up CD in my optical drive. I tried it a second time after removing the CD drive, and it recognizes nothing. So basically my hard drive is not being recognized for some reason.

So, unless I can run fsck or some other disk repair application, I am beginning to think that my only option is to erase the disk and start over.

 

[mad jew]

Interesting. I would have thought that if it was a software problem you would still be able to use Target Disk Mode to get your files from your Mac onto your friend's Mac though. 😕

 

[MacTheKnife]

Interesting. I would have thought that if it was a software problem you would still be able to use Target Disk Mode to get your files from your Mac onto your friend's Mac though. 😕

Update: As I suspected, the problem I was experiencing was a complete software issue. I say this confidently because after erasing the disk and reinstalling OSX two days ago, my PB is running smoothly without a hiccup (with 3rd party RAM installed).

I am wondering how often other Mac users have had to reinstall OSX if at all? I would call myself a casual follower of the Macrumors forums, and it has been my experience that I have read a fair number of posts talking about reinstalling OSX for whatever reason. My own experience was that my PB purchased last July ran very nimbly for the first half year or so, but then slowly started to experience problems with interminable beach ball spinning despite performing repair permissions regularly. Do other users find OSX to become slowly less reliable/snappy as time goes on? Or was my experience not the norm? (FYI I have been running 10.3.x since I purchased the PB.)

Would be interested in hearing what others have to say.

 

[perrin21]

Solution

OK Guys, heres the solution, this will fix the problem in 5 mins. Hope this gets me some kudos lol. This is the solution for when you power up your mac you get the please restart curtain within a few seconds and regardless how many times this does not go away.

Here goes.
1) Boot into Safe mode (takes longer than normal boot). This is done by pressing the shift key when you hear the mac chime and holding it until you see the rotating cog then release the ket and the mac will boot up into safe mode.

2) select Go to folder in the finder menu at the top of the screen.

3) Type in the following: /System/Library/Extensions/
this will take you directly to the right folder.

4) Locate the file: BootCache.kext and delete it.

Now simply restart. this file will be recreated on the first restart.
you should not get the restart message now on startup and your mac should boot fine.

Happy days
Let me know how you get on.

 

[ElectricSheep]

Except the OP's problem was a corrupt HFS+ journal file, not the kext cache. The only solution, in this case, is to either erase the disk (which would nuke the bad journal), or by forcing the journal to be disabled from diskutil (after booting from a separate volume).