Macbook Pro will not boot; Safe Mode kernel panic

T

th3r21ndr0p

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Hello, my name is SPC Sanders. I am a forward observer currently deployed to Afghanistan. I've owned a Macbook Pro for a couple of years.

About three weeks ago, I made the stupid mistake of attempting to run iOSX so I could dual boot with Windows 7 (all stuff I acquired while I was home on midtour leave.) The install seemed to be ok, however, I noticed immediately I could not make any changes to settings as my administrator password was no longer working. (Administrator is my only account on this laptop.)

At fear of losing my operability, I simply did not power down for that whole time. However, I recently moved bases, and alas, the time came to power down.

Upon bootup, I get a constant spinning wheel. I left this on for a couple of hours just to be sure, then realized it was a lost cause. I tried booting in safe mode, and I got some kernel panic. It says a bunch of stuff about debugger calling the panic, bla bla bla, but the thing that caught my eze was Mac OS version not set yet.

After booting in safe mode, getting that error, and powering off, my laptop will boot into a grezish blueish lightblueish (alternating) type of screen, which sometimes has the spinning wheel, sometimes not. Again, nothing.

I understand I will probably need my OS disc to fix this, but I didn't bring it with me. Am I SOL?
 
Do you know anyone else with a Mac? Do you have an external drive to save things? Yes, probably a stupid question, I know.

--J.D.
 
I could ask around, but theres not many. Plus, they moved me to a German base not long ago, and unless Apple is popular with the German army as well, I doubt it.

I do have two external HDDs. Movies have kept me sane over this tour.
 
So you are in Germany? Not too bad, SOMEONE might have a Mac that you can connect to Fire-Wire--see the FAQs on how to do that--run Disk Aid and it may fix things.

Did you back up "yourself" on one of your Ex HDD? So you can boot off of that? If so, you can do the same thing--boot on the Ex HDD . . . run DA . . . sacrifice a virgin to Pazuzu . . . and that may fix things.

If not, you might consider getting Disk Warrior. It is about $100 BUT, you can "boot" off of the DVD, and try to repair the disk. It does this far better than any--saved my ass a number of times.

If it cannot repair it, it can usually create an "image" of your data that you can temporarily access--as in then send to an Ex-HDD. So at least you have your data. After that, you are kind of stuck getting your Install disk.

However, however, IF you had OS 10.5--which is what my Macbook came with--you can get the upgrade to SnowLeopard for about $30 and use THAT to try to repair, upgrade, et cetera.

--J.D.
 
Actually, in trying to save you some $$$ I did not search the company website. At the Alsoft site, you can download it and get the DVD . . . which will eventually come to you.

I long ago got the CD which allowed me upgrades so I basically download an upgrade which allows me to burn a bootable DVD. I mention this because I have no idea "what" you will get. You may get a disk image that you can open on another computer and then use that to upgrade your computer. Otherwise, you are going to have to have access to a computer and DVD burning. You may have no problem assuming you are using a PC--since if you are using a Mac you could use that Mac to boot your sick Mac :)--but you might wish to e-mail customer support, detail your problem, and see what they say.

I am sure you problem is not unique.

--J.D.
 
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