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Hi! I have have some weird activity with Kernel panics. It started when I came home from a cafe that has internet access, my SSD crashed into a kernel panic. I’ve tried almost everything! Safe mode would not boot, when i held alt key it worked but would not boot to drive just kept panicking and switching itself on and off constantly with the short message. I zapped PRAM, that was no good, Disk utility did not recognize my drive in recovery mode. However, I got my external drive out and it booted from there with no problems, I wiped the drives partition out it had, and did a fresh install using carbon copy cloner. Disk was back to normal and was running great again. 3 days later… I had to go back to same cafe to meet a friend and I was on my MacBook doing some work, when i got home same thing again! With all the warnings each time I did get in saying your computer closed down due to unexpected … etc Anyway, I took the drive out this time and did a repair through Disk Utility in external drive case when I put drive back in it was fine all weekend, Had to go back to that Cafe again a few days later, but this time it didn’t boot up inside the Cafe at all, I just panicked it would mess up still again. Now I can’t see my Disk or Erase it, but the system boots OK from external case. I thought it might be my HDD SATA cable as I had something similar happen in the past and it has been flashing at the top now and again. The beach ball of dread has been doing the rounds big time. I bought a HDD SATA Cable today, I haven’t got it yet waiting on the post and if it’s not that you can’t go wrong having a spare one of these. I am running it off external drive now, but there is no way it will boot normally. Anybody got any idea what might be happening and what to do? I was thinking was it my SSD at first I have had it a year and isn’t totally full, but is working OK in optical drive caddy, so I’m not sure, when I verify and repair it finds no problems at all. Did I pick something up in that cafe I’m wondering? If so I don’t know what to do really, As I can’t wipe the drive now for some reason. I do have a Mac mini, but i don’t want to give it the Flu, so to speak. If i did a target mode thing, I’ve not done it for a while. Anyway any tips be great, if cable is the problem I will update this message. Thanks in advance! Captainpubwatch
It sounds like you hit the trifecta! Yes, your HD drive cable is the start of some of your problems and that is where I would start. But! you’ll need to wipe your drive down and install the OS back properly! Don’t use Carbon Copy! While it was a great tool years ago, it’s no more ;-{ You see, CCC does not work well with the newer OS-X or MacOS versions and wouldn’t create the needed hidden recovery partition. OK what to do here?? I would create an OS installer drive using a USB thumb drive following this writeup: How to create a bootable macOS Sierra installer drive. Do make sure you have made a good backup of your apps & data using TimeMachine or other good backup app. The last issue is the possibility of picking something up at the cafe. Yep! Strong likelihood ;-{ How you setup your system and using a good antivirus app both can help make the risk less. First, create a second user which is not an admin. Truthfully, you should be using this account over your first account (Admin). This helps in isolating an infected user account as you can then use your Admin account to get in, create a new account and delete the infected account. You’ll use the Admin account to install apps moving forward. Next make sure you turn off your WiFi before going out the door so your less likely to expose your self. If you must connect to the internet think about using your phone instead! Tethering via Bluetooth or WiFi. But of course consider your cellphone accounts limits and if you have any restrictions by your carrier. OK, thats not going to work any other ways? Yes! Use a VPN service so your stuff and connection is secured from any man in the middle attacks as well as a software firewall (Mac OS’s offer one) make sure its enabled or think about a better firewall that has more controls. Lastly, use a good antivirus app and use private browsing within Safari and think about using Ghostery or other adware/cookie monitoring & blocking app.
