My wife was deleting some emails on her MacBook (purchased last month) when she got the kernel panic telling her to restart. So she hit the power button and now it won't restart. Actually it will restart, but it gets to the gray apple screen and just sits there spinning.

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See if it'll boot into Single User mode. Hit power button from a dead stop, press and hold Cmd + S.

When ALL of the gibberish text stops, type:

fsck -f

(and then press Return)

When done, type: reboot

(and then press Return)

ok...whats the next suggestion? She tried that and it failed. She's either writing down the error she got or taking a pic of the screen and sending it to me.

I guess since the computer is pretty much new, we can call Apple.

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It won't even boot into Single User mode? Yeah --- take it to Apple.

here is what happens after the fsck...

**/dev/rdisk0s2
**root file system
**checking HFS Plus Volume
**Checking Extents Overflow file
**Checking Catalog File
**Invalid Key Length
(4,2342)
**Volume check failed
localhost :/ root#

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Your Disc is Hosed.

BGnR

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"Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto! You're beautiful!"
"If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster."
"Near the day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky."
"A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans."

Probably has a bad HD that decided to die. Those Macbooks are notorious for having the drives die. Apple will probably have to put a recall out on them.

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C(-)ris
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wonderful. superb. a two month old MacBook dies. How nice.

so let me ask this. Is there anyway to get the data off the drive? Yes, i have a backup. Just not a current one.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2007 10:12AM by bazookaman.

bazookaman, Got DiscWarrior? Worth a shot as long as the HD is still spinning. However, I don't know if it can fix an Invalid Key Length.

Quote
bazookaman
wonderful. superb. a two month old MacBook dies. How nice.

so let me ask this. Is there anyway to get the data off the drive? Yes, i have a backup. Just not a current one.

The HD is not the whole MacBook, but I understand your frustration.

Try also Data Rescue. If it can see the drive it might see the data. Boot the MacBook into FireWire Target mode and connect it to another Mac with DiscWarrior and DataRescue.

I know its not the whole MacBook. But it might as well be. At least with a logic board, ram, video etc failures, your data would most likely still be intact. Yes, its my fault for not having a current backup. However, I hadn't planned on the HD failing before the 90 day phone support was up. Yeesh!

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so is an invalid key length a hardware or software error? In other words, if I can manage to backup my system, is it going to backup the bad stuff too?

I currently have my MacBook booted into target disk mode connected to my G5. I am doing a super duper backup to a disk image on my G5. We'll see if that works.

Well super duper is going REALLY slow, but its going. I also managed to copy over her Mail folder (which was the most important thing). SD has been running for 17 minutes and its copied 72,000 files of 505,000. So it will be awhile. Oh well...back to work.

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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2007 11:28AM by bazookaman.

I *think* that Invalid Key Length is software --- screwed up directory on the HD. If so, DiskWarrior 4 is your best hope.

As for copying over corrupted filea --- yes that's a real possibility. I'd concentrate on the personal data and user directories and see how that goes and let the OS portion go. You can always replace the OS easily.

If you get the data off but can't fix the drive with DW you might then try formatting it. If you can format the drive it's probably OK (I'd zero it out just that all sectors get cleaned.)

So far this would point to a software issue, but it could be a software issue caused by bad hardware somewhere. RAM, logic board, circuitry on the HD. I don't know. The hardware diagnostic disc might help here.

Some people have had luck repairing bad keys by running the fsck several times in succession.

DW can often repair those errors... but not always. It's better at repairing "keys out of order" errors than "key length" errors.

A key is a fundamental part of the directory structure of your drive. It identifies where a file resides on your drive. If a key gets messed up then there is a big risk that files will get written over each other. Given the complexity of OS X, it's almost certain that some files on the drive are irretrievably corrupted.

It's "software," if you want to put it that way. And that means that erasing the drive will remove the error (as well as all of your data). But that's a last resort.

Backup whatever you can while you still can in Target mode. Don't try to boot from that drive again as it will likely only make the problem worse.

10-4.

I tried DW. It repairs ALOT of stuff. But I think i will erase it anyways. I had assumed (incorrectly) that a key area was hardware related.

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And do zero it all out. This forces every sector to be written to. If there's a hidden problem in one sector it'll be unhidden now. You'd rather find it now instead of later.

Heh. Maybe I'll try to install Leopard again.

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"However, I hadn't planned on the HD failing before the 90 day phone support was up."

big mistake - ALWAYS assume your drive is gonna die TODAY and act accordingly...

I know it's after the fact, but it's now a lesson learned

so now I am using my OLD ibook to post this as my G5 is busy erasing my MacBook via target disk so I can install leopard.

Oddly enough, after booting the ibook via the leopard DVD it gave me an error telling me I cannot install leopard on this computer b/c it needs at least 10.4 on it. So it then directs me to the startup disk pref where I can plainly choose my 10.4.11 startup disk. Oh well, I guess it IS hosed,

I currently have 1 hour and 9 minutes to go erasing the disk and zeroing the data. This WILL correct the problem right?

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> This WILL correct the problem right?

The key-length problem, yes. What may have caused that problem... that could be hardware.

No way of telling from this high mountaintop.