Using the console on a slave disk in target disk mode?

[applesupergeek]

Trying to troubleshoot a macbook pro 2.4 ghz with c2d so I start it up in target disk mode connected to my imac. (The current issue I am having are kernel panics on start up asking me to power off and restart). I am trying to see what the console output for the mbp is, but when I choose the mounted disk and go to applications there and run console, I get the console messages of my imac? What am I doing wrong guys? Any ideas?

edit: for the time being I ll just restart it in verbose mode, see what I get from that.

 

[netnothing]

Trying to troubleshoot a macbook pro 2.4 ghz with c2d so I start it up in target disk mode connected to my imac. (The current issue I am having are kernel panics on start up asking me to power off and restart). I am trying to see what the console output for the mbp is, but when I choose the mounted disk and go to applications there and run console, I get the console messages of my imac? What am I doing wrong guys? Any ideas?

edit: for the time being I ll just restart it in verbose mode, see what I get from that.

Don't think console will help much on the target disk since all of consoles messages are from the running OS, which in this case is your disk.

You can run disk utility on it and that will check the disk itself.

Try starting in verbose mode on the bad disk....that should show you some more info.

I recently fixed a friends Macbook that kernel panicked right at boot.....the best info I got was from verbose mode during startup. In the end I just applied the latest combo update to the target drive to get it back up and running (of course since it was a Leopard machine it was slightly painful to do with my Snow Leopard machine, but I managed).

Good luck.

-Kevin

 

[applesupergeek]

Thanks Kevin, I really appreciate your insight here. I will try what you said, try a few things out. I reset the pram and it booted eventually, but now again kernel panic on start up. I think it's hardware related, and I am afraid it could be the geforce card, as the symptoms before failure where that of a failing geforce. We 'll see. Apple support was helpful too, so I might send it over to them soon.

 

[netnothing]

Thanks Kevin, I really appreciate your insight here. I will try what you said, try a few things out. I reset the pram and it booted eventually, but now again kernel panic on start up. I think it's hardware related, and I am afraid it could be the geforce card, as the symptoms before failure where that of a failing geforce. We 'll see. Apple support was helpful too, so I might send it over to them soon.

If both machines, the master and the broken one in target disk mode are on the same OS (both Leopard or both Snow Leopard), then you should definitely try booting the broken machine into Target Disk Mode and installing the latest Combo update to see if that helps. It helped my friends machine and worked perfect.

Did you try running the Apple Hardware test from the install DVDs? Sometimes this can give you a good idea.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509

If this comes back clean, it could still be hardware, but at least there is chance of it not being hardware.

Were you able to see what was causing the Kernel Panic? Or get access to the KP log (you should be able to get that in Target Disk Mode)....they are stored here:

You can check kernel panic logs (in Mac OS X v10.6 they are located in in /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports; in Mac OS X v10.2 - 10.5 they are located in /Library/Logs/PanicReporter)

Good luck!

-Kevin

 

[applesupergeek]

Hi Kev, thanks for taking such care in this, I am humbled.

I 've set the machine aside for awhile because I was too tired to check it anymore. I did try to run the latest updates but alas before the files had been downloaded I put the machine to sleep because I had to go out. It never woke up, the screen was black, so I shut it and turned it on again but this time it didn't but upon despite the pram flush.

I wasn't aware of the apple hardware test, is it fairly reliable? Thanks for the heads up, strange I have not come across it so far. I will run the sl disk on the makbook pro. And yes both machines are on sl. I only knew of tec tools pro that come with applecare.

I 'll look at the logs too.

Thanks again.

 

[netnothing]

Hi Kev, thanks for taking such care in this, I am humbled.

I 've set the machine aside for awhile because I was too tired to check it anymore. I did try to run the latest updates but alas before the files had been downloaded I put the machine to sleep because I had to go out. It never woke up, the screen was black, so I shut it and turned it on again but this time it didn't but upon despite the pram flush.

I wasn't aware of the apple hardware test, is it fairly reliable? Thanks for the heads up, strange I have not come across it so far. I will run the sl disk on the makbook pro. And yes both machines are on sl. I only knew of tec tools pro that come with applecare.

I 'll look at the logs too.

Thanks again.

No problem....glad to offer some advice.

I've had mixed results with the Apple Hardware Test. I had bad RAM before that the test didn't detect, however I have seen it detect bad major parts in a system before.

If Apple Hardware Test does find something, then just take the machine to Apple and they'll fix it. If not, then there is a chance it's not hardware and applying the combo update might help.

-Kevin