Help! Just had my first Kernal Panic...

[alexf]

I just had a Kernal Panic on my Cube running OS 10.3.9.

Everything is well backed up, so I am not too concerned with losing information, yet I would rather not (for time reasons).

What can I do? I have tried restarting a few times, and putting in another disc with a start-up volume on it while I hold "C" but I still get the "screen of death."

Help!

 

[IJ Reilly]

I would suggest you read through many of the sticky threads on this subject. Bottom line is, you probably have a hardware problem if you can't start up on a CD.

 

[alexf]

Open firmware screen

I have fixed the Kernel Panic problem by reinstalling the OS, yet I still get the open firmware screen when I restart the computer and I have to type in "mac-boot" for it to start up.

Fortunately, other than that everthing seems to be working fine.

What is going on? How can I fix this?

 

[MacsRgr8]

I have fixed the Kernel Panic problem by reinstalling the OS, yet I still get the open firmware screen when I restart the computer and I have to type in "mac-boot" for it to start up.

Fortunately, other than that everthing seems to be working fine.

What is going on? How can I fix this?

Maybe resetting the Open Firmware could help:

Once in OF (where you pressumably are after a reboot), type:
reset-nvram <ENTER>
reset-all <ENTER>

The Mac should restart now, and hopefully boot normally. Good luck.

 

[IJ Reilly]

How could you reinstall the OS if you couldn't start up on a CD?

 

[alexf]

How could you reinstall the OS if you couldn't start up on a CD?

I ended up being able to start on the Panther install disc. For some reason the other discs (10.2 and 10.1) just produced a perpetually gray screen...

 

[alexf]

Maybe resetting the Open Firmware could help:

Once in OF (where you pressumably are after a reboot), type:
reset-nvram <ENTER>
reset-all <ENTER>

The Mac should restart now, and hopefully boot normally. Good luck.

No, unfortunately this did not help.

This is really the strangest thing. Why would this happen?

Again, everything else works fine after typing "mac-boot" into the open firmware screen, but I am preparing to sell this computer to someone tomorrow, and cannot sell it in this state!

 

[FFTT]

I PMed Alex and hope that he gets rolling soon.

Most likely, he's going to need to boot up from his orginal OS 9 CD
to get past the grey screen with the arrow. Then hopefully be able to
re-select his OSX startup volume if it's still intact.

I lost everything in a kernel panic once on my G3 trying to install Panther with an earlier version of Xpostfacto.

I actually ended up havingto remove the SCSI drive and card before
I was able to boot from the CD.

It may take several attempts before the OS CD is recognised and he may need to rebuild from there.

Best of luck!