Panther refusing to install: Log excerpts included. (help!)

The target system is a 800Mhz G4 PowerMac with 1GB of RAM. Panther is
consistently refusing to install to either the internal hard drive, or
any external firewire drives. I've tried two different copies of
Panther (one direct from Apple, another from the local shop, so I think
media problems can be discounted), and both give exactly the same errors.

The full log is too large to post (although I'll be happy to email it if
any kind soul wanted to look further into this), but here are some of
the (I think) relevant errors:

Oct 27 14:14:11 root: uchr XML compiler: Unknown attribute "outptt" on
key element
Oct 27 14:14:11 root: uchr XML compiler: key has neither output nor
action
Oct 27 14:14:13 : Mac OS X Installation Log
Oct 27 14:14:13 : Opened from: /System/Installation/Packages/OSInstall.
mpkg
Oct 27 14:14:13 : Hardware Model: PowerMac3,5 @ 799 MHz, 1024 MB
Oct 27 14:14:13 : Running OS Build: 7B85
Oct 27 14:14:13 : Installer Language: English

Oct 27 14:14:43 root: bootstrap_look_up(): unknown error code
Oct 27 14:14:45 root: bootstrap_look_up(): unknown error code

Oct 27 14:14:49 : Selected volume 'PANTHER'
Oct 27 14:14:49 : Mounted at: /Volumes/PANTHER
Oct 27 14:14:49 : OpenFirmware: fw/node@1a3280014003d/sbp-2@4000/@0:9
Oct 27 14:14:49 : Partition type: Journaled HFS+
Oct 27 14:14:49 : Partition map: disk2s9
Oct 27 14:14:49 : Partition: 9
Oct 27 14:14:49 : Protocol: FireWire
Oct 27 14:14:49 : Media Type: Generic
Oct 27 14:14:49 : Volume Size: 8453480448
Oct 27 14:15:08 : Package mounted from disk3s1s9
Oct 27 14:15:08 : Verifying device node: /dev/rdisk3s1s9
Oct 27 14:15:08 : Starting media verification
Oct 27 14:18:27 : Verified 677928960 of 677928960 bytes (100%)
Oct 27 14:18:27 : Media MD5 Checksum = 6210a896 e8de2eb2 48fee214
fc51a456
Oct 27 14:18:27 : Finished media verification
Oct 27 14:18:27 : Waking target volume
Oct 27 14:18:27 : Done Waking target volume
Oct 27 14:18:27 : Starting install
Oct 27 14:18:27 : Erasing volume for OS Install
Oct 27 14:18:27 : Original Disk Layout
Oct 27 14:18:27 : partition map from /dev/disk2:
Oct 27 14:18:27 : #: type name size
identifier
Oct 27 14:18:27 : 0: Apple_partition_scheme *7.9GB
disk2
Oct 27 14:18:27 : 1: Apple_partition_map 31.0KB
disk2s1
Oct 27 14:18:27 : 2: Apple_Driver43 28.0KB
disk2s2
Oct 27 14:18:27 : 3: Apple_Driver43 28.0KB
disk2s3
Oct 27 14:18:27 : 4: Apple_Driver_ATA 28.0KB
disk2s4
Oct 27 14:18:27 : 5: Apple_Driver_ATA 28.0KB
disk2s5
Oct 27 14:18:27 : 6: Apple_FWDriver 256KB
disk2s6
Oct 27 14:18:27 : 7: Apple_Driver_IOKit 256KB
disk2s7
Oct 27 14:18:27 : 8: Apple_Patches 256KB
disk2s8
Oct 27 14:18:27 : 9: Apple_HFS PANTHER 7.9GB
disk2s9
Oct 27 14:18:27 : Preparing disk for erase
Oct 27 14:18:30 : Erasing volume.
Oct 27 14:18:30 : Erasing
Oct 27 14:18:33 : Initialized /dev/rdisk2s9 as a 8062 MB HFS Plus volume
with a 8192k journal
Oct 27 14:18:34 : Mounting Disk
Oct 27 14:18:34 : Done erasing volume.
Oct 27 14:18:36 : Final Disk Layout
Oct 27 14:18:36 : partition map from /dev/disk2:
Oct 27 14:18:36 : #: type name size
identifier
Oct 27 14:18:36 : 0: Apple_partition_scheme *7.9GB
disk2
Oct 27 14:18:36 : 1: Apple_partition_map 31.0KB
disk2s1
Oct 27 14:18:36 : 2: Apple_Driver43 28.0KB
disk2s2
Oct 27 14:18:36 : 3: Apple_Driver43 28.0KB
disk2s3
Oct 27 14:18:36 : 4: Apple_Driver_ATA 28.0KB
disk2s4
Oct 27 14:18:36 : 5: Apple_Driver_ATA 28.0KB
disk2s5
Oct 27 14:18:36 : 6: Apple_FWDriver 256KB
disk2s6
Oct 27 14:18:36 : 7: Apple_Driver_IOKit 256KB
disk2s7
Oct 27 14:18:36 : 8: Apple_Patches 256KB
disk2s8
Oct 27 14:18:36 : 9: Apple_HFS PANTHER 7.9GB
disk2s9
Oct 27 14:18:36 : Waiting for volume...
Oct 27 14:18:36 : Preparing Disk for OS Install
Oct 27 14:18:36 : Volume disk2s9 mounted at /Volumes/PANTHER is ready
Oct 27 14:18:36 : Creating directory at /Volumes/PANTHER/.Install-temp
Oct 27 14:18:36 : Activating Virtual Memory backing store

Running task: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Installation.framework/
Resources/pax
Oct 27 14:22:50 : ERROR:Could not read archive file. - pax: Invalid
header, starting valid header search. -
Oct 27 14:23:17 last message repeated 2 times
Oct 27 14:25:20 last message repeated 7 times
Oct 27 14:26:00 last message repeated 2 times
pax:
Oct 27 14:26:23 : could not read compressed data
Oct 27 14:26:23 : :
Oct 27 14:26:23 : Unknown error: 0
Oct 27 14:26:23 : ERROR:Could not read archive file. - pax: End of
archive volume 1 reached -
Oct 27 14:26:29 : ERROR:Could not write file. - pax: WARNING! These
patterns were not matched: -

Oct 27 14:26:35 : Some files for Essentials may not have been written
correctly.
Oct 27 14:26:35 root: 2003-10-27 14:26:35.493 Installer[118] Exception
raised during posting of notification. Ignored. exception: Some files
for Essentials may not have been written correctly. (code 1)
Oct 27 14:26:38 : Install Failed
Oct 27 14:26:38 : Error detected
Oct 27 14:26:38 : Name: NSGenericException
Oct 27 14:26:38 : Reason: Some files for Essentials may not have been
written correctly. (code 1)
Oct 27 14:26:38 : Aborted install.

All help much appreciated.

--

An Apple a day keeps Microsoft away.

Did you ever get to the bottom of this one?

(800Mhz Powerbook, 512 MB memory)

I've been trying to upgrade to Panther and it keeps erroring out. I
figure there was something wrong with the Hard drive (because it would
always error out in the beginning of the install during the Hard drive
checks, etc...) so I copied all my data to an external device, erased
everything with Disk Utility, and now it errors during the,
"Installing, Preparing Mac OS X, Preparing Target Volume" phase. In
my log, the last message I get is, "Activating Virtual Memory backing
store".

Not really certain what to do at this point, except to keep trying
different options... It's just that it takes so long to get through
the initial phase of checking the disks that each attempt wastes about
an hour or two of my life.

I'm an old Windows dude with tons of experience in troubleshooting
similar things on PC's but I don't have the same diagnostic tools for
Mac (since you hardly ever need them), like Disk Warrior, etc.

I'm starting to wonder if there is a memory problem. Perhaps I'll
remove the add-on chip in my box.

As you can tell, I'm pretty much grasping at straws... Also, you're
post is the only one in google groups that has my last "Activating
Virtual Memory backing store" message. i.e. It's not something a lot
of people are experiencing...

Thanks for any help.

Jimmy

I finally got Panther installed... Boy, it was a real hassle. I
copied all my data to an external Firewire device and then deleted
everything on my hard drive. I wanted to start with a clean install.
That's where the easy part ended.

What happened after that is basically speculation... I tried
installing it over and over on Friday night and all day yesterday with
no luck. It kept freezing at arbitrary locations and it was getting
really frustrating. (I think it was specific to the memory chips in
the DVD/CDRW drive, but I'll get to that...) Here is an example of
the behavior I was seeing... Sometimes it would not start the OS X
install off of the CD. Even hitting "C" during the boot, it would
spit out the Install CD like it was no good. It would do that over
and over... Hitting "Option" during boot is supposed to give you the
boot options, too, but it would also just spit out the install disc.
And then other times, it would start up the install and go to the grey
apple screen and just sit there forever. And then, of course, other
times it would go into the install and work a little bit, but then
just stop. Usually when it got into the install it would stop where
slowly the CD drive activity would decrease until it did nothing. I
did all kinds of things including resetting the NVRAM and trying the
memory from my IBook but nothing worked. I finally gave up yesterday
late afternoon and figured I'd have to take it to Apple for repair so
I turned it off. The wife and I watched "The Matrix, Reloaded" and
after it was over (so remember the computer was completely off for
about 3 hours) I tried the install. It went all the way through the
install with no problem. I was happy and frustrated at the same time.
The only thing I can think of is that there was a corrupted memory
register in some component (Hard drive, CDRW/DVD drive, etc) and being
off for 3 hours allowed all the power to drain, hence allowing the
potential bad RAM to drain its data. I have no idea what else it
would be. Because if it was a hardware problem, you'd think it would
never work until the faulty hardware was replaced. Also, since I've
been running this machine with 100% stability for over a year, I can't
imagine it being hardware specific and that basically leaves memory as
a culprit.

I'm just glad I got it working. It was really frustrating me
yesterday. Now my job is to make sure that my Firewire 400 Drive can
safely be plugged into my Powerbook without losing my precious data.
I've read some posts where people with the older 400 drives have had
trouble. So before I push my luck, I want to make sure that it will
be okay.

Hopefully this helps anyone else out there with similar troubles.
(But I hope it's just specific to me and my bad memory chips no,
not my head, the ones in the computer)

Good luck.