Unable to boot from CD/Reinstall everything

[vaicine]

Hi,

I'll start by saying i'm not a mac man, and i'm use to working with windows and linux systems. However, that said i have had experience with macs in the past and knowing lots about systems in general means i should be able to fix my problem (with your help!)

This isn't actually my imac, it's a friends who asked me to have a go at fixing it.

It's an iMac G5 on OS X v10.4

Here's the problem:

When booting up normally it goes to a screen with an apple in the middle, and then some kernal panic code comes up:

panic(cpu 0 caller 0x002E1904) unable to find driver for this platform: "PowerMac12,1"

That's the first line of the code.

Anyway, i want to simply format the whole system and start from scratch with the system disk supplied with the imac. However, when i put it into the machine and press C at start up, it goes to an apple screen and hangs on that apple screen and does nothing else.

I've tried pressing the alt key and going into the boot options and booting from the CD there. However, that goes to the apple screen, then a little ajax style loading thing comes up. That sits there for a while until the apple turns to a "stop" style sign. This continues to hang.

I've tried resetting the PRAM and NVRAM by holding the Command, Option, P, and R buttons. Holding theses makes the computer reboot a few times until i let go. Once thats done, nothing changes.

I've tried holding X while loading up, this just goes back to the panic code.

I've tried holding shift while loading up, this again just goes back to the panic code.

I've cleaned the system CD and it makes no difference.



Any suggestions on how i can get this imac to boot from the CD?

 

[Walrus666]

Have you used fsck?
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106464#symp2
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214

 

[vaicine]

Have you used fsck?
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106464#symp2
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214

I stated in my initial post that i've done everything contained in those articles - except the fsck (however i can't do that because the system CD does not boot into any type of menu). But thanks for the reply.

 

[Walrus666]

I stated in my initial post that i've done everything contained in those articles - except the fsck (however i can't do that because the system CD does not boot into any type of menu). But thanks for the reply.

You don't need a "system cd" for fsck. In addition, if you follow the links you'll find some additional troubleshooting ideas that you didn't cover in your original post.

 

[vaicine]

You don't need a "system cd" for fsck. In addition, if you follow the links you'll find some additional troubleshooting ideas that you didn't cover in your original post.

Sorry - i must've misread the fsck stuff. However - Just tried going into single-user mode and verbose mode. Both do the same thing - go into the same panic text page, except with 2 small differences:

1. At the top before all the panic stuff it says:

"standard timesclicing quantum is 10000 us
vm_page_bootstrap: 126621 free pages
mig _table_max_displ = 70"

2. I don't get the apple screen anymore. The background is just black.

An idea - would it be possible to take out the HD and stick it in a windows machine and format it? Or does it have a different file structure to NTFS?

 

[vaicine]

Just talking with a friend of mine who knows about macs and he thinks that the person who gave me the iMac to fix didn't give me the right disks lol.

I'll report back once i've got the right disks whether i fix my solution

 

[Walrus666]

Sorry - i must've misread the fsck stuff. However - Just tried going into single-user mode and verbose mode. Both do the same thing - go into the same panic text page, except with 2 small differences:

1. At the top before all the panic stuff it says:

"standard timesclicing quantum is 10000 us
vm_page_bootstrap: 126621 free pages
mig _table_max_displ = 70"

2. I don't get the apple screen anymore. The background is just black.

An idea - would it be possible to take out the HD and stick it in a windows machine and format it? Or does it have a different file structure to NTFS?

Entirely different animal. Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Have you checked the RAM, and, or the Airport Extreme card (If it has one)? Also, have you tried unplugging the Mac for an hour or so and disconnecting all of the peripherals? You might want to check with your friend and ask him if he added some hardware recently and what he was doing when his Mac took a dive.

 

[Walrus666]

Just talking with a friend of mine who knows about macs and he thinks that the person who gave me the iMac to fix didn't give me the right disks lol.

I'll report back once i've got the right disks whether i fix my solution

Sometimes it's the little things! Lol! Unfortunately, that doesn't explain why you couldn't go into single user mode. You should have seen a prompt.

 

[vaicine]

Sometimes it's the little things! Lol! Unfortunately, that doesn't explain why you couldn't go into single user mode. You should have seen a prompt.

The other thing is it doesn't make a beep at start up? Apparently that means it's not loading firmware or something.

I'll try unplugging everything. I doubt my friend did any hardware upgrades as he doesn't know anything about computers.

 

[Egidio]

Another thing to think about is whether you or your friend have recently installed some memory. Bad memory chips can cause the problem you've described.