macosx crash... panic: we are hanging here

W

wenn

Registered
okay, this is my desperate plea for help:

i was downloading some a clip(wmv) off the net this morning when my safari hanged. so i forced a shut down and tried restarting, which wouldn't boot into the os window (just a blank white screen). i checked my manual and tried rebooting with the macosx installation disc, hoping to fix the drive using disk utility, but it wouldn't let me fix the hard drive at all. my hard drive is partitioned, and i'm hoping to rescue the data on one of it since i have no backup copy at the moment, so i'm trying not to reinstall macosx and wipe out the data. i rebooted again, hoping to gain entry into the system under the safe settings, but it gave me a panic message saying "we are hanging here" and that it cannot find the drive for this platform...

please help. how can i work around not having to reinstall/reformat my hard disk and get the system up and running again?


currently extremely desperate and would be eternally grateful for help,
wenn.
 
Which version of Mac OS X were you using?

Try and boot up from the CD with the installation disc. Once at the Installation welcome screen, go to the menu and select to Run the Disk Utility (it might also be named Disk First Aid depending on the version of OS X you are using). Once that comes up, have it repair your Mac OS X partition by selecting that Mac OS X partition underneath the hard drive icon (you probably had the HD selected instead of the Mac OS X partition, which is why it didn't let you repair it). After it's repaired everything, reboot and see if you get to the desktop.

If you do get to the desktop, launch the Disk Utility (in Applications-->Utilities) and repair permissions on the hard drive. You might also
 
I'm on Tiger at the moment.

Actually, I did try First Aid-Disk Utility, and yes, I did click on the HD instead of the partition, but the partitions didn't show up at all and sometimes, the HD wouldn't show up too. In between, I just found out that I used the wrong installation disk (I have both Panther and Tiger), so I will give it a try again. Just in case the partitions don't show up again, what do I do?

Also, nixgeek, thanks very much for your reply and help.
 
ok, i tried the single user mode, no luck though; it just gives me the blank screen with a question mark in the middle. i tried the disk utility to repair again using the macosx (tiger) installation disc, but this time, the hard drive did not appear at all, no matter how many times i tried. so i gave up and called apple care, which asked me to carry it into the nearest apple service contractor (which i was told was about 8+ miles away). the worst part was that when i arrived, i was told that there was supposed to be another service centre that was closer to me, that i could have actually walked to instead of taking a £20 cab ride! :mad: the good thing was that i managed to meet a fellow mac-user-in-trouble who very kindly offered me a lift back into the city.

i'll post the diagnosis from the technician (if i get to talk to one, you never really know) once i get it back, but i'm told that it will take around 5 working days for them to look at it. for the record, this is the 2nd time my G4 has crashed on me, and it's only 3 months old. is anyone having similar problems with G4 on Tiger? is the operating system still unstable, or is it the hardware that's problematic?

btw, thanks again, nixgeek, for the help. really appreciate it.
 
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