:.................( computer broken

[aimeekitty]

EDIT: SEEMS *knock on wood* to have been fixed by a system update (combined) from apple's site. Some of the threads I read on this subject seem to suggest that doing a "repair permissions" is almost mandatory after a significant update and that they think apple should combine that WITH the update (and that you could possibly have kernel panics if you DON'T run repair permissions?)
hrm. so this makes me wonder if the more recent mac update was faulty or buggy?? apple don't make me loose faith in you!

oh well... it's fixed now. I think.
-------------------------------------------------------
I've run disk utility and fsck ... I can't seem to get my computer to start normally.

I was just checking email and surfing the internet when all of the sudden a window popped up that said "you must restart your computer now". So I did. and everytime I restart as soon as it starts to get past the grey apple picture it gives me the same "you must restart your computer now". I can start in SAFE MODE but that's it! :(! I don't know what to do! I looked all over apple's help site to no avail. They said do safe mode and disk utility and fsck...

some possibly pertanent information:
- I just recently installed a new Western Digital 120 hardrive (it's a "slave" secondary drive) it seemed and still appears to be running normally. (when booting in safe mode, there is nothing wrong with the drive, I did disk repair on it just to make sure.)

- I just recently installed Mac OSX 10.3 jaguar. However it also seemed to be running perfectly for several days. I haven't installed any additional software or hardware that might have effected my system.

wtf do I do? I guess call apple and sit on the help line for the rest of my precious sunday? :....(

can anything else go wrong with my computer? *____*

Comments

[verilens.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a virus to me, but I'm no computer expert :/ Wish I could help.

[milkpanzer.livejournal.com]

I agree that it sounds like a virus. I'm not sure what sort of virus is out there that would affect a Mac though!

Minakawa believes to start in Safe Mode you hold down the Shift key during boot-up. But he's not positive on that. :/

[milkpanzer.livejournal.com]

Minakawa also found this (you might have to cut'n'paste the link to get it to work)...

http://www.macusers.org/showthread.php?s=028c9a90b3105b1328855a732d5fd8f2&t=2087&page=1&pp=15

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

Wow that's my exact problem! I tried a few of the suggestions listed in that thread (one being reinstall the most recent "combined" mac system update) and that seems to done the trick (so far!) So I think it's fixed! Thanks so much! :D!! I was about to have a heartattack there for a minute. My mac so seldom has problems, you know?

[milkpanzer.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm so glad we could help! ^-^

[giles.livejournal.com]

Kernel panics can be caused by a lot of stuff, from bad memory to corrupted files.

I had this on an iMac once - just out of the blue it started crashing out a few minutes after booting up. What I did was reinstall OS X... using the "Archive and Install" option, I think it's called. When you boot from the OS X CD and install over an existing OS X installation, you should be able to pop open options and select "archive and install" which will save a copy of your existing OS X and install a new one around all your data... so if you have anything customized in an OS X system folder it will still be there in a folder called "Previous Systems" but you will have a brand new install with your same home directory and everything...

The problem with that is you have to re-do all the Software Updates that have come out since your OS X CD was made, so it eats up a lot of time... but I've never had a kernel panic on my iMac since.

[hawkstone.livejournal.com]

It's not a virus; there is pretty close to no such thing on a Mac.

The grey screen that tells you to restart your Mac in French, German and Japanese is called a "kernel panic"--the UNIX core, or kernel, is throwing a hissy fit.

More about kernel panics: http://www.macmaps.com/kernelpanic.html and http://docs.info.apple.com/article2.html?artnum=106227

Kernel panics can happen for a wide variety of reasons. To start with, boot from your Panther CD. If it panics then, it's hardware; otherwise it's software. You can try checking Panther's log (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106228)for more information but you will probably need to take it to your friendly neighbourhood AppleCare Service provider.

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

I tried a reinstall of the most recent "combined" mac system update and that seems to done the trick (so far!) So I think it's fixed? I appreciate all the suggestions you've been giving me to help me fix my computer, it's sweet of you!

weird that the error message is "reboot" when it sounds like "kernel panic" is much more serious! it's too bad that apple didnt decide to give more detailed error messages, you know? makes it very hard to trouble shoot. some of the threads about this that I looked up, suggested everything from unplugging and slowly repluging everything back in to removing all the ram and other harddrives to doing system reinstalls, I mean crap, that's a lot of work! Luckily *knock on wood* it seems to be fixed witha simple system update, but geeeeeeeeeeeeez!!

[hawkstone.livejournal.com]

taeha reads me your posts whenever you're having Mac issues. :)

Sometimes Apple's updates aren't as improvey as one would like. (10.3.5 had some issues. (http://www.appleturns.com/scene/?id=4854)) Today I had to fix a bug in Safari by installing the 9/7 Security Update again.

Definitely do repair permissions every once in a while, especially after big installs. You don't have to reboot from CD to do that. Disk Utility will clear up most catalog and B-tree errors; for anything worse than that, I like TechTool Pro. (I've never liked Norton on Mac, and it's now been discontinued anyway.) I have never used fsck.

Keep MacJanitor (http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/10491) around to manually run your machine's scheduled maintenance scripts, if you don't let your computer run at 3 am very often.

Don't use Quark 6. It chewed holes in my install of Panther like you wouldn't believe. :)

[jenova-silver.livejournal.com]

Repair permissions before you apply an update, and immediately after. *knocks on wood* I've had decent luck with the incremental updates, but that could change.