Help! Won't boot, stuck on grey apple screen

[Crrisssy]

My iMac starts up but gets stuck on the grey screen (with the apple and spinning progress indicator). It's 3 years old and is running 10.3.9. I'm a newbie and don't know much about troubleshooting.

I've unplugged everything except the mouse and keyboard. I can start in single-user mode and get 16 lines of white text on black, ending with:

Load of /sbin/mach_init, errno2, trying /etc/mach_init
Load of /etc/mach_init failed, errno 2

then it doesn't let me type reboot (or anything). I also can't get the disc to open up. The keyboard must be working because it recognized my command S to get into single-user mode.

background:
We had a power outage last night when the computer was on, so it was not shutdown properly. It restarted fine after the power outage, but 3 times I got this error message in a grey box in several languages that said the computer needed to be shut down by holding down the power button. I hadn't seen this before (is this a new virus or normal?) After the second restart, I was prompted to load new iTunes (and something else) update and restart, and I did so.

 

[joby866]

Sounds like your iMac is having a kernel panic, dont worry! there is some things which may help.

Try these solutions:

- TOP SOLUTION Boot your iMac with Apple key-X / this will boot your iMac in safe mode and shouldn't load whatever is giving you the kernel panic. But of course, this doesn't load graphics, network etc. So you'll really have to find the .kext in /System/Libary/Extensions/ which is making your iMac have a kernel panic.

- Boot from Mac OS X Install Disc and run repairs (Hold down Option/Alt key when booting and select the CD)

Otherwise if this does not work, Im sorry to say that in the past I've known this to be a bug and it's common in 10.3 (Panther)

Hope this helps,

Joby

 

[Crrisssy]

Safe mode: command X or shift?

Sounds like your iMac is having a kernel panic, dont worry! there is some things which may help.

Try these solutions:

- TOP SOLUTION Boot your iMac with Apple key-X / this will boot your iMac in safe mode and shouldn't load whatever is giving you the kernel panic. But of course, this doesn't load graphics, network etc. So you'll really have to find the .kext in /System/Libary/Extensions/ which is making your iMac have a kernel panic.
-----------------------
I tried to boot my iMac into safe mode by holding "shift" down after the startup tone per http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1455?viewlocale=en_US

I tried this and there was no affect - it still went to the grey apple screen with the spinning progress indicator.

Is starting up with "apple key-X / different? I searched for this trick and couldn't find any reference to it.

HELP - starting to thump head against wall...

 

[mastershakess]

- Boot from Mac OS X Install Disc and run repairs (Hold down Option/Alt key when booting and select the CD)

Joby

Try that

 

[Crrisssy]

Is this a new mac virus?

Try that

Thanx. Ok I tried booting from my OS X disc by restarting while holding down C. It goes from the light gray screen to a dark gray screen with the same error message I received 3 times before it failed (each time it started back up ok).

Its a light gray box about 5"X3" with a light colored power switch as a background, that says "You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button" (then says it in French, German, and what looks like Chinese letters maybe?) at the bottom of the box is has FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF

Is this a real error message or a virus?

 

[Crrisssy]

I tried using C because that's what the disc says to do. When I rebooted while holding down the alt/option key, it goes to the gray screen with the apple, but immediately after showing the spinning indicator it stripes with what looks like static across the screen, and there it hangs

anyone ever seen this before?

 

[Crrisssy]

ah ha!
Its an older computer so I had a separate Hardware Test cd (which is what would have been run on the combined cd if you hold alt/option).

I ran the extended test with the following results:
AirPort, Passsed
Logic Board, Passed
Mass Storage, Passed
Memory, Passed
Modemm, Device found
Video Ram, Passed

but below it shows the following error code:
post/16/2048 Dimm0/J22

it also says
Alert! Apple Hardware Test has detected on error at starutp.

what do I do from here?