Possible Kernal Panic

[brigga72]

Been doing some research, and I'm pretty sure I have a kernal panic.

It all started with a crash then it was taking my Ibook forever to start up so I started up from the os x install cd (which also took longer than usual). From there I ran the disk utility and tried to disk verify and repair the disk when it told me I had an invalid node structure. No success, so I figured I don't really have anything on it I cared about losing so I erased the disk and did a fresh install of 10.3. Everything was going fine until I got to the internet options portion of the set up wizard. A black screen covered the existing screen and I had a box with a apple power symbole in it that told me in 4 languages that I need to restart my computer.

I've been looking around the net and found that I might have a kernal panic, which could either be caused from a failing HD or bad ram. I replaced the ram with a stick that I knew was good and still got the error.

Is there anyway to check the onboard ram on the logic board before I order a new harddrive. Also I don't think it can be any of the other causes of a kernal panic cuz with a fresh install I don't really have any third party extensions, and I'm sure I can put 10.3 on it because i have 18gb HD, 700mhz, around 364mb ram.

I'm thankful for any help or direction on how to test the onboard Ram.

P.S. I ran the Apple Hardware Test before I did a fresh install and everything passed, but I read that it can sometimes give you a false positive.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Yes, that's a kernel panic. The vast majority of kernel panics are caused by hardware faults, and most of them by bad RAM. The Hardware Test is only useful if it finds something, which unfortunately is rare. Many hardware issues are not picked up by the hardware test.

You may have a bad hard drive (more likely on an older Mac like yours), but really the only way to test this without replacing the drive is to run it off an external drive. You could also try running one of the commercial hard drive diagnostic and repair utilities such as DiskWarrior or TechTool, if you have access to them.

 

[brigga72]

diskwarrior

I have diskwarrior, but I can't get the ibook to boot fromt he CD. I know the CD works cuz i can load it on my tangerine. So not sure how I run it unless i take the ibook apart plug the harddrive up to my tangerine via usb to eide cable i have to have diskwarrior run on it....think that would work? Also will DW be able to tell me if my hard drive is bad because I have already erased the hard drive.

 

[IJ Reilly]

You have two Macs? This helps. Do you know how to do Firewire Target Disk Mode?

 

[brigga72]

firewire

Yes i do know how to do firewire disk mode. Should I do that and run diskwarrior on the harddrive that i'm having problems with. Just fyi after the fresh install of 10.3 i ran the disk utility from the install cd and when i tried to verify the disk i got a catalog error...something about i'm suppose to have 154 and i only have 27. so i'm running the disk repair right now.

 

[IJ Reilly]

If you can mount the drive from the Mac with the problem onto the desktop of your other Mac using Target Disk Mode, you'll know at least that the drive isn't totally fried. Then you can also run DiskWarrior on the drive from the host Mac. That's what I'd try next.

 

[brigga72]

got it started

Thanks for the help I've got it started up in 10.3, but it took a while and everything takes forever to bring up or sometimes it doesn't bring up anything at all. Like right now I brought up utilities fold and it is showing nothing in it. Could this be leaning toward a Ram problem. I replaced the sloted ram with some that i'm sure is in working order and had the same kernal panic problems. Is there a chance that the ram on the logic board is faulty or do you think I should try replacing the ram again now that I have gotten it to start up to the OS?

 

[IJ Reilly]

I'd still check that drive with DiskWarrior before I did a single other thing. More and more it sounds like disk directory corruption.