My iMac has a Kernel Panic screen come up on start up and I can't get past it no matter what I try. Any help to fix this would be greatly appreciated.

Question

My mac has a "Kernel Panic" screen come up on start up. No matter what I try I can't get past this to fix it. Any hints out there? Do I have to completely wipe my drive and re-install to fix this? I can't even back up my files before doing this as like I say I can't get past the Kernel Panic message.

Answer 1

There are some fairly informative articles about kernel panics...
•OS X: About kernel panics:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3742?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
Note the toggle triangles to get more info in the above article, some are
important steps, with alternative methods of accessing or performing a
suggested activity and may vary with the OS X version in use.
•Resolving Kernel Panics:
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/kernelpanics.html
•Technical Note: TN2063: Understanding and Debugging Kernel Panics:
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/technotes/tn2063/_index.html
The above TN covers several technical aspects to identify & troubleshoot.
Some are above the average user needs, but still can be rather helpful.
Hopefully you can get past the kernel panic screen, there are several
ways to attempt to do that, however if the issue is hardware, a reinstall
of the OS X may not cure the underlying cause of the symptom.
Good luck & happy computing!