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Mac Mini Won't Boot Up. Tried Everything!

M

MacMiniUser

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 29, 2005
20
0
Leeds, UK
Hello All,

I've got a 1.25 Mac Mini with 256mb Ram (all original, not upgraded).

It's running 10.4 Tiger.

No problems at all, until today,

came to use it and all i'm getting is a small folder with the finder icon and a question mark, alternating. This is before even the grey Apple screen.

i've booted from my install DVD and reformatted and reinstalled the OS, twice, still the same, i've been into Disk Utility and the Disk is showing as fine, there's also no errors when installing.

I've reset the PRAM, also the NVRAM too, through open firmware. still not getting anywhere.

Everything is passing on the hardware test too, so, although i'm not an advanced user, i'm not a novice, and i'm stumped, as is a friend i know who's a lot more knowledgable than me!

Thanks in advance!
 
The mini was only introduced a year or so ago wasn't it? It'll probably still be covered by the original 1-yr Apple Warranty thingy, so if all else fails you know where to turn to...
 
Try unplugging that dock and give it another try, you shouldnt ever have stuffed connected when reinstalling the OS. No peripherals at all. If that doesnt work it could be the drive.
 
Dont Hurt Me said:
Try unplugging that dock and give it another try, you shouldnt ever have stuffed connected when reinstalling the OS. No peripherals at all. If that doesnt work it could be the drive.
Click to expand...

Just tried booting completely disconnected from everything other than monitor and all i got were the finder icon in a folder, no question mark though.

I'll try everything else in the morning.

It's 2am here in the UK and the rest of the house are in bed, in the next room, the Mac Mini's chime is too loud!

Cheers!
 
MacMiniUser said:
It is, but that's inconvenience and a last resort, especially as it doesn't seem to be a hardware fault.
Click to expand...


I actually think most signs are pointing towards a hardware fault at this stage. The Hardware Test CD wears rose-tinted glasses and is notoriously bad at picking up faults. I think this may be a job for Apple considering fresh installs are not getting anywhere. :(
 
Fixed.

Booted into firewire target mode, connected to my windows laptop.

Then went into PartitionMagic and deleted the existing partition and created a FAT32 partition, then formatted the drive in disk utility.

Since then, everything seems fine.

Now installing Tiger.

Had to install Panther first and that worked fine, but now installing my Tiger upgrade DVD.

Cheers everyone!
 
Hmm... So the first two reformats didn't work but this one did. How bizarre. :confused:

Hopefully I'm wrong and there's nothing wrong with the hardware. :)

What's the keyboard issue?
 
it would appear that the MBR (or similar) were corrupt on the Mac, and reformatting weren't sorting it, however, i changed it to FAT32 so it had to completely change it and it worked fine.

Cheers!
 
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