What Is "Safe Start Up" Or "Safe Boot Up"?

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In the last month, I have gotten two restart notices from my OS. In other words, my MacBook Pro 13" crashed twice. Today, AppleCare told me it was a "kernel panic" that was causing the crashes, though they had no idea why my kernels were panicking. One thing they had me do was "safe start" the computer, which means you push the "Power" button and let go, then hold down the "Shift" key. After everything rebooted, they had me do a simple "Restart."

What exactly does a "safe start" do?

How much damage does a kernel panic do to the hardware/software?
 

chscag

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Let's take this one at a time:

Kernel Panic. Usually caused by hardware but also can be caused by software. The next time a KP occurs, copy the panic log and post it here for us to look over. We may be able to find what's causing it.

Safe Boot. It's a method of starting the machine so that certain things do not get loaded such as login items. See this LINK for a detailed explanation.
 
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copy the panic log



Where's that? All I saw was a grey curtain coming down that said "Restart" in four languages.
 
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Applications > Utilities > Console.

On the left you'll see a tree. Scroll down and you'll see Panic Reporter. Click on the arrow to it's left and it'll expand.. like this.

Screen shot 2011-05-26 at 10.12.55 PM.png
 
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Mike, I found it but it is too long to post. Even an excerpt of yesterday's log is over 18,000 characters long.

What to do?
 

chscag

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Just copy the log entry down to where the BSD occurs. That should give us an idea of what's going on. If even that is too large, attach the entire log entry to your reply as a text file.
 

chscag

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You didn't include an attachment of the log. Look above the dialog box that's used for replies and you'll see a group of icons. Click on the small paper clip icon and then choose the file which contains the panic log.
 
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Says "Invalid File" on upload.

I'll have to figure something out.
 
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UPDATE:

Got another kernel panic. Restarted.

AppleCare said restart from disk. Reinstall OS. Got an "Install Fail."

Got another kernel panic.

Went to Genius bar. Genius runs a hardware check off the internet (Very cool. Apparently we can do this from our disks). Genius diagnosed bad RAM. Genius replaces both RAM sticks under warranty. Genius rechecks hardware. Genius pronounces, "All is now groovy."


AppleCare phone service is cacadoodoo, as far as I am concerned. Genius Bar worked out okay, though.


When I got home, I did a TimeMachine back-up. That went fine, but I noticed that the MPB got about as hot as I have ever had it (approx. 175F w/ fan speed going as high as 3800 rpm). Is that a heat and labor intensive program? Also, Genius says don't ever transport your laptop in Sleep mode, you might damage the hard drive. How come we cannot get a consistent answer from Apple on "Carrying in Sleep Mode"?







P.S. Where is the thread where I can complain about how much I hate the new mac-forums.com layout?
 

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