Initial bootup problem

This one's happened approx 10 times in the past couple of weeks.

When I switch my iMac on ,after a few moments (After the horn sound) a blue screen pops up with a grey box in the middle (It has a picture of a power button behind it) tellng me & 3 other languages that the system needs to be switched off by holding down the power button or pressing the reset button.

One time, the message came up 4 times in a row. I ended up leaving the machine off for 15 mins then coming back to it before it booted.

At a guess I'd think the system isn't shutting itself down properly, but it really is just a guess.

For a bit of extra info. I've tried quitting any running apps manually before shutting down the system & it has happened after that too.

Any guidance on this one peeps?

FuZion.

That's a kernel panic.

Usually caused by bad RAM.

Cheers for the quick response but I sure hope it's not. This is quite a new machine, about 7 months old & being new to Mac I haven't even entertained the thought of opening the devil up.

I have just been looking at another thread on slow booting which is something else I've been having troubles with as times gone by. I've just give the whole thing a once over with OnyX. When verifying, OnyX said I needed to use the Disk Utility to repair my drive. Disk Repair has just told me this:

Verifying volume “Macintosh HD”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking Extended Attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
Volume Header needs minor repair
The volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired.

Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit

1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair

Click to expand...

However, the "Repair Disk" buttons remains disabled. Repair Permissions, Verify Permissions & Verify Disk are all clickable, but not Repair Disk... Handy eh...

How can I go about applying this repair?

FuZion.

Boot your system using the install media and then run the disk utility application from there.

Would that be one of the 2 CD's that came with the system?

I think I spotted that somewhere else. Disc 1 seemed to boot straight into installing the system without any other options. Or am I in the wrong place?

FuZion.

FuZion said:

Would that be one of the 2 CD's that came with the system?

I think I spotted that somewhere else. Disc 1 seemed to boot straight into installing the system without any other options. Or am I in the wrong place?

FuZion.

Click to expand...

Let us know the outcome.

FuZion said:

Would that be one of the 2 CD's that came with the system?

I think I spotted that somewhere else. Disc 1 seemed to boot straight into installing the system without any other options. Or am I in the wrong place?

FuZion.

Click to expand...

That's exactly where you're supposed to be. Choose your language and then look for the bar at the top and find Disk Utility under one of the options (I forget exactly which one, possibly Tools). Then you should have the option of repairing your disk.

Cheers Kash, I never spotted the Utility menu up there. Ok, my HD has been repaired using Disk Utility.

My Mac had to have the last laff though didn't it. I used the menu to quit installation, I was asked what I wanted to do so I selected "Restart" & the same screen came up as in my first post saying I needed to switch off my Mac & restart it. As with before, once Mac OS came up, a window popped up saying Mac OS had quit unexpectedly.

Is there a way of finding out what is actually going wrong during the shutdown or startup procedure to try & find the cause of this?

FuZion.