My 2006 Mac won't turn on, I press the power button and the apple logo flashes

[KatieWilliams12]

I have a desktop Mac from 2006 that I haven't used in a few months. I went to turn it on today, but I couldn't. I pressed the power button and the computer made the "daaaaaaaaaaaa" starting noise. Then, the apple logo flashed in the middle of the grey screen. Then the logo switched to a circle with a line through it, like a "not allowed" symbol. So I waited for a few minutes, and the same symbols kept flashing.
Then I tried restarting it and holding down command, shift, V. It gave me a black screen, and it read:
efiboot loaded from device (lots of letters and numbers)
boot file path: \Users\katiewilliams\.Trash\System\Library\CoreServices\boot.efi
Loading 'mach_kernel' ...
root device uuid is '5E8499B0-2W1C-42F9-98CF-8AB29BA1E47E loading drivers... error loading drivers

I barely know anything about computers, but it seems strange that the "file path" goes through the trash. Does this maybe mean that some crucial file has been deleted?
I have moved several times since I bought this computer, so unfortunately I've lost all of the disks that it came with, so I can't load any disks to try and fix it. I also live in Asia, and there aren't any apple stores that can help me.
I'm really worried, because I was stupid and lazy and never backed up any of the photos on this computer. Will they be lost forever?? Does anyone have any ideas to help?

 

[AnonMac50]

[snip]

Do you have another Mac on you right now or have access to one?

 

[justperry]

I have a desktop Mac from 2006 that I haven't used in a few months. I went to turn it on today, but I couldn't. I pressed the power button and the computer made the "daaaaaaaaaaaa" starting noise. Then, the apple logo flashed in the middle of the grey screen. Then the logo switched to a circle with a line through it, like a "not allowed" symbol. So I waited for a few minutes, and the same symbols kept flashing.
Then I tried restarting it and holding down command, shift, V. It gave me a black screen, and it read:
efiboot loaded from device (lots of letters and numbers)
boot file path: \Users\katiewilliams\.Trash\System\Library\CoreServices\boot.efi
Loading 'mach_kernel' ...
root device uuid is '5E8499B0-2W1C-42F9-98CF-8AB29BA1E47E loading drivers... error loading drivers

I barely know anything about computers, but it seems strange that the "file path" goes through the trash. Does this maybe mean that some crucial file has been deleted?
I have moved several times since I bought this computer, so unfortunately I've lost all of the disks that it came with, so I can't load any disks to try and fix it. I also live in Asia, and there aren't any apple stores that can help me.
I'm really worried, because I was stupid and lazy and never backed up any of the photos on this computer. Will they be lost forever?? Does anyone have any ideas to help?

Yep, the path is not normal, your boot.efi file is in the trash, should be in \System\Library\CoreServices\

Your Data is not lost, it should still be there if nothing else happened.
How did that file end up there, strange.

I know you can Startup in Single User Mode and then input some commands to move the file back into it;s place, whether this helps I have my doubts.

Start up in Single User Mode by holding Command-S
Then input the following commands

fsck -y
Hit Enter
mount -uw /
Hit Enter
mv /Users/katiewilliams/.Trash/System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi /System/Library/CoreServices/
Hit Enter
reboot
Hit Enter

Edit: I just changed the forward slash in backslash

 

[KatieWilliams12]

Do you have another Mac on you right now or have access to one?

Yes. It's a few years old, I think I got it in 2009 or 2010

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Yep, the path is not normal, your boot.efi file is in the trash, should be in \System\Library\CoreServices\

Your Data is not lost, it should still be there if nothing else happened.
How did that file end up there, strange.

I know you can Startup in Single User Mode and then input some commands to move the file back into it;s place, whether this helps I have my doubts.

Start up in Single User Mode by holding Command-S
Then input the following commands

fsck -y
Hit Enter
mount -uw /
Hit Enter
mv /Users/katiewilliams/.Trash/System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi /System/Library/CoreServices/
Hit Enter
reboot
Hit Enter

Edit: I just changed the forward slash in backslash

Thank you so much for trying to help. I tried to input the comands and got no response I'm not sure if I'm inputting them right, though. Am I just supposed to type out each thing, or should I hold them down all together? This is so frustrating!

 

[justperry]

Yes. It's a few years old, I think I got it in 2009 or 2010

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Thank you so much for trying to help. I tried to input the comands and got no response I'm not sure if I'm inputting them right, though. Am I just supposed to type out each thing, or should I hold them down all together? This is so frustrating!

Type exactly what I wrote in my last post, don't forget spaces.

There is a way to list all the contents of a folder, sadly if I use that command the boot.plist is not mentioned in my
Coreservices folder but it is there, it is a locked file and that might be the reason.

The command to see what is in a folder is "ls" and to go to a path is "cd"

Example:

cd /System/Library/CoreServices
Hit Enter
ls -n
Enter

Or ls -p or just ls

Note: ls as in LS non capitalised.

But, i am pretty sure it won't list yours as well, I am still searching how to use the "ls" command so that it shows all files, I will update this post if I find it.

Update 1 : ls -n does work, I see my boot.efi in that folder, didn't look well enough.

Update 2 : Can you do the following and see what more is in the trash, your complete System Folder might be there.


cd /Users/katiewilliams/.Trash
Hit Enter
ls -n
Hit Enter

If it says System Folder is one of the items the above won't work.

 

[KatieWilliams12]

I tried to type it, but the screen stayed the same through the whole thing. I've typed everything 3 times, and I'm pretty sure I haven't messed up, but nothing happens.
At the bottom of the screen, after all of the letters and numbers, there is an underscore. I'm thinking that this underscore should be blinking like a curser, to show the commands that are typed? But the whole screen is still.
Thank you for your patience should I just give up?