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I swapped the RAM around, trying a few different combos (one stick in various slots, then another in various slots after seeing the same problem after trying the first stick).  Then I reset the PRAM, checked the PRAM battery with a multimeter (3.6v), hit the CUDA switch and tried booting again...same result. 

I've now got the Powermac connected to a Powerbook via TDM.  When I hit option when booting the Powerbook, it sees the Powermacs hard drive, but when I try to boot from it, I get the same result as booting the Powermac itself.  If I try to mount the Powermac's drive after booting the Powerbook to its own drive, I get an error saying that the disk is not repairable by Disk Utility, and will be made available with limited functionality.  Running Disk Utility after this error (Verify Disk) gives the same error after a few minutes.  The two items in red in Disk Utility are "Invalid Key Length" and "Volume Check Failed."

Smells like a corrupt filesystem?  But the question is, can it be repaired without having to wipe and reinstall (which would be a pain, as the towers optical drive gave up the ghost quite some time ago)?  Or is it deeper than that?

Last edited by pkmgarf (2009-07-07 4:35 pm)

So, I reformatted and reinstalled Leopard via TDM and booting to an install disk on my Powerbook (as stated before, dead optical drive on the tower).  Everything appears to be working as it should.  Disk Utility says the disk is SMART verified. 

Oh well, it was time to do a fresh install, as everything was starting to get sluggish anyway.  I'm just happy my SATA drive is still intact (wasn't visible in TDM as it works off of a PCI card), which is where all of my media is.

Weird.  First time I've ever seen a Mac shut off due to a software(ish) problem.  Every time I've seen a problem that could be solved by reformatting, the system just hangs at the grey Apple screen.  First time for everything...