Kernel Panic on clean update

Did you 'erase' your hard drive, or just an archive and install?
If you erase the hard drive and install, you should always get the new user setup ...
Sometimes you can get around a login window problem by starting in Safe Boot mode. restart, and hold your shift key, releasing that when you see the 'rotating gear'. This boot will be much longer than normal (2-3x longer), and will stop at the login window, even if you have set the auto-login. If you get to that login window, try to login to your user.
If you get to the desktop (as normal), do a shutdown (NOT restart, but shutdown). Let the system sit for 20-30 seconds, and reboot normally, and should be OK.
If you still can't finish booting at all (leave alone for at least 20 minutes before you decide it has failed), then you have a hardware problem of some kind - suggesting a marginal hard drive (even if it tests OK), or more often, marginal memory.
If you erase and install again, I will suggest that you use the PowerBook as is for a few days, and DELAY updating to 10.4.7 until you see that your PowerBook is working OK. Install extra software that you might have to use, just don't update the system itself until you can see that your PowerBook is functioning OK. Be patient with this...
 
thanks - I have patience, sadly my bosses don't ... ;)

By the way, I always erase and install, it doesn't take that long to put in the personal info and all the data is stored remotely.
 
The patience is mainly to delay updating your system (to 10.4.7) until you know that the rest of your software is working OK.

If you still have problems, without updating, then it's just not the software - unless you are installing other major apps in addition to the system updates. In that case, update the system first, before adding your major apps.

:) If you boss is pushing you, then you might need to find out how many hours you need to waste trying to repair a (potentially) unreliable laptop. If you have no other hardware in the mix, a PowerBook would have these symptoms related to a failing hard drive, or faulty memory. Anything else in the hardware gets expensive to repair on an older laptop.
 
Okay - how's this for bizarre?

Did another clean install (erase) of the base 10.4 system. Fine. Downloaded another standalone 10.4.7 Combo installer and installed it in Safe Boot.

It installed fine - the reboot took about 30 seconds and now everything is running fine!

Go figure ...
 
Given that some of the apps were crashing when checking the target volume, and based on your advice, I have now replaced the hard drive with a spanking new one.

A fresh version of Tiger 10.4.6 is currently being installed (I bought the latest DVD version just to be sure).

I'll keep you updated.
 
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