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Hi, I have a 2005 mac mini running OSX 10.5.8 that recently had a kernel panic problem and...

...I thought I could get around the kernel panic by saving impt. files and then erasing and reloading my OSX from the original disk and then updating to 10.5.8 and then downloaded other programs like Word and the drivers for my printer...Anyway, things seemed good for awhile, and then, I believe after downloading the latest update of Microsoft Office Mac things started getting hinkey again w/Safari shutting down when it it felt like it. I thought maybe Safari was my problem so I downloaded Firefox (3.6? for non-Intel Macs) and things actually seemed to work...I surfed the net etc. and it al seemed to work w/no error messages. I shut the computer down and when I tried to start it back up I pushed the start button, the chimes sounded and things clicked like they were working, my monitor came on, a blue screen appeared and the spinning wheel was spinning away...but nothig booted up and the mini started a cycle of shutting itself off and restarting w/no boot up...Read some stuff online and one suggestion was to strat up the mini while holding down the alt/option key and when I did three icons appeared on screen: a C-shaped arrow, aHD icon w/an "X" next to it and the third icon was just a straight arrow pointing right...any suggestions would be appreciated! TB

Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Mar 21, 2013 7:09 AM

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Posted on Mar 22, 2013 12:39 PM

Hello, the alt boot icons are 3/4 circle= look again for boot devices, possible or not drives in the middle, & the right arrow is Boot from selected device.


The X means the drive needs Repair at the very least, but may be dying also... does it boot from your Install Disc?


"Try Disk Utility


1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.

2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu at top of the screen. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)

*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*

3. Click the First Aid tab.

4. Select your Mac OS X volume.

5. Click Repair Disk, (not Repair Permissions). Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."


http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214


Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.


(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)


If perchance you can't find your install Disc, at least try it from the Safe Boot part onward.


Oh, & as far as browsers...


TenFourFox is the most up to date browser for our PPCs, they even have G4 & G5 optimized versions...


http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/


SeaMonkey seems pretty fast also, with many options...


http://www.seamonkey-project.org/


http://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/


Have you blown the dust out lately?

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Question marked as Best reply

Mar 22, 2013 12:39 PM in response to TGMB

Hello, the alt boot icons are 3/4 circle= look again for boot devices, possible or not drives in the middle, & the right arrow is Boot from selected device.


The X means the drive needs Repair at the very least, but may be dying also... does it boot from your Install Disc?


"Try Disk Utility


1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.

2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu at top of the screen. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)

*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*

3. Click the First Aid tab.

4. Select your Mac OS X volume.

5. Click Repair Disk, (not Repair Permissions). Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."


http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214


Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.


(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)


If perchance you can't find your install Disc, at least try it from the Safe Boot part onward.


Oh, & as far as browsers...


TenFourFox is the most up to date browser for our PPCs, they even have G4 & G5 optimized versions...


http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/


SeaMonkey seems pretty fast also, with many options...


http://www.seamonkey-project.org/


http://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/


Have you blown the dust out lately?

Mar 22, 2013 3:41 PM in response to BDAqua

Thanks for your detailed answer and the info on browsers...I've been working on the mac for hours and hours reading all kinds of advice off of the net and have done so many things I'm nearly cross-eyed...I've tried booting up from my OS 10.5.4 CD and running disk utilities...Nothing seems to work...I got the message "rebuilding catalog B-tree, underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972) 1 volume could not be repaired..." Another was "file system verify or repair failed..." I've done the safe boot and another boot that allows you to check if the firmware is okay (and it said it was) also I reset various settings (pram? catalog setting?) I'll have to research what I've researched to tell you more! I've also did a dieagnosis beyond disk utilities and that didn't work either (c-something or other). I'm having fun here and now I've got a plumbing and wall repair problem too...Do you think any repair disks are worth the investment? I've also gotten to the point on here where I've tried to reload 10.5.4 but when it asks where I want the system installed ni icon of the hard drive is present. Gotta say when I did do the disk utilities from my OS 10.5.4 disk things seem to look pretty grim....anything here make it sound like my little buddy is dying on me? Thanks for your time and effort in this. TB

Mar 22, 2013 3:57 PM in response to TGMB

What does this report?


Does it boot to Single User Mode, CMD+s keys at bootup, if so try...


/sbin/fsck -fy


Repeat until it shows no errors fixed.


(Space between fsck AND -fy important).


Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck...


http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214


Just recently I ran into a problem when I tried to Verify my hard disk and when it tried to verify the catalog, it responded "Invalid sibling link." Repair Disk didn't work. I searched the web and Apple's site, and couldn't find anything useful except to buy DiskWarrior or reformat the drive. Knowing that OS X is built on Unix gave me a few clues on how to proceed. The solution is pretty simple:

1. Boot off the OS X CD (reboot, hold C while booting).

2. The installer will load up, go to Utilities in the menu and run Terminal.

3. Type df and look for the drive that has your Mac system mounted---you'll have to unmount this. On my MacBook Pro, it was /dev/disk0s2.

4. Type umount /dev/disk0s2, replacing disk0s2 with whatever disk your OS lives on.

5. Type fsck_hfs -r /dev/disk0s2. If you umounted the wrong thing, it will complain that you can't repair a mounted drive. Go back and umount the right thing and repeat this step.

Just for fun, you might want to run another fsck_hfs on your disk (use the -f option because your drive is probably journaled). Hope this helps someone so they don't buy a program that's going to do pretty much what we did with fsck_hfs, and so they don't waste time searching for an answer to no avail. By the way, TechTool Deluxe (3.1.1) didn't find the Catalog problem for some reason (you'll have this on a CD if you have AppleCare), which is why I resorted to fsck.


http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20070204093925888


You must repair the HD, if Disk Utility or fsck should fail to repair it, your best bet is DiskWarrior from Alsoft, you'll need the CD to boot from if you don't have another boot drive...


http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/


Your best bet is DiskWarrior, you need the CD/DVD though.


http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/


But others that may work…


Drive Genius…


http://www.prosofteng.com/products/drive_genius.php


TechTool Pro…


http://www.micromat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=83


Though it's tough to tell if the Hard Drive is dying, or maybe a RAM problem.


BTW, you might enjoy these DiskWarrior review/recommendations...


http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9645801&#9645801


http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10541019#10541019


http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11918925&#11918925


http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12684129#12684129


http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12744794&#12744794


http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12912879#12912879

Mar 23, 2013 9:58 AM in response to TGMB

Hi, thanks again for your info packed response to my deilmma with the mac mini. I did everything you suggested. Firstly, the computer won't boot up into single use mode (unless I should be doing the CMDS key holding when I'm booting from the original 10.5.4 cd). It just doesn't work. I did perform a /sbin/fsck -fy yesterday and the end reslut was that nothing happened. I booted up from the disk and performed the Terminal task as suggested in part of your response. When I typed unmount/dev/disk1s3, the answer came back, "No such file or directory." Thanks for all of you wisdom on this! TB

Hi, I have a 2005 mac mini running OSX 10.5.8 that recently had a kernel panic problem and...

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