MacBook won't reboot after Kernel Panic!

[847jones]

Hi everyone! Been reading these boards for a while and it turns out now I need help.

I was simply browsing the internet (Safari 3) earlier when my one year old MacBook suddenly stopped working with a Kernel Panic. At the time of the crash I had my 500 GB external USB drive and a EMU USB-MIDI interface connected, both of which have never caused me any problems whatsoever.

I switched off my external HD and restarted my Mac, thinking this was just an exceptional error. Unfortunately, upon restart, my MacBook gave me the following error message: http://img135.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bild0113qj5.jpg

(Apologies for the quality)

I then decided to try and boot off my OSX startup disk. Thing is, I can't even get to this screen anymore. Subsequent restarts result in a black screen and the sleep light being lit, but nothing else seems to be working. The disk drive makes a short 'eject' noise which is usually followed by the boot sequence but it's as though the whole machine just freezes after making the sound. Sometimes it will go into some sort of loop and repeat the eject noise until I kill the power.

Sorry for the epic tale, I just figured too much detail would be better than too little.

My MacBook (white) is just 13 months old (out of warranty), 2.16 Ghz C2D, 2 GB RAM. Running OSX 10.4.11 with all updates. Never had a problem with it until today. It's been looked after well and has had regular disk checks, permission repairs and running of maintenance scripts.

Any help would be most appreciated.

 

[Coulter]

Looks like a corrupt hard drive?

I'd take it to an Apple Store and see what they say.

 

[synth3tik]

If you can't even boot from the CD it would seem to not be a HD problem. I would suppose since you can't boot from the CD that you probably could not boot into firewire disk mode. I think it might need to go into Apple.

 

[847jones]

If you can't even boot from the CD it would seem to not be a HD problem.

That's what I was thinking

Yes, FW target mode is out of the question since I cannot even get to the point where I'd normally enter into that.

Bringing it in to the Apple Store first thing tomorrow.

 

[MacLovin78]

I got the same thing last month and it was one of my RAM modules had gone bad. Pop the battery out and remove the retention plate and then pop one of the modules out. Try and reboot with it directly connected. If you still run into the kernel panic then put that stick in and pop the other stick out. If that still doesn't work then you possibly have two bad sticks or it is something else. Good Luck.

 

[847jones]

I got the same thing last month and it was one of my RAM modules had gone bad. Pop the battery out and remove the retention plate and then pop one of the modules out. Try and reboot with it directly connected. If you still run into the kernel panic then put that stick in and pop the other stick out. If that still doesn't work then you possibly have two bad sticks or it is something else. Good Luck.

Thanks for the suggestion. I just tried that and it still won't work. I wish I had the original RAM here to check if both sticks have gone bad, but I don't. I'm more frustrated about the fact that I can't even get the kernel panic anymore than anything else at the moment (apart from the fact that a total failure really shouldn't occur in the first place, let alone in a 13 month old machine).

 

[MacLovin78]

That sucks... I would take it to the Mac Store. I still think it is the RAM as I got three or four different screens with the bad RAM. What kind of RAM did you upgrade with? I made the mistake of upgrading with Kingston Value RAM. One stick went bad after less then a year. I went to the Kingston web site and filed a claim for replacement. They were really good about sending out a replacement. You just fill out the form online and it gets to you in a few days. So I had one bad stick but they sent me a package of two 1GB sticks. I figured I would just pop in the two new ones in case the other was on its last legs. Turned out that one of the new sticks they sent me was bad too! So I just used the two good ones (one new and one old) and sent back the two bad. Their service was great but their product not so great so I won't use them again.

Oh and when I put the new RAM in (one was good one was bad) I didn't even get the kernel panic or a bad screen. The power light on the front would just blink real quick and the CD drive would click once.