my mac mini wont boot

[canote]

hi there

yesterday as i was using my mac mini it began acting slow, i closed all the programs open and restarted the computer, when restarted it does not boot up and only shows me a blank blue-grey screen....any suggestions on what to do??

 

[Adamal]

I had the exact thing happen to me with my old G4 Mac mini. It turns out my internal hard disk was at fault. I had to restart the mini a number of times and experienced a few kernel panics along the way but was eventually able to boot into OS X. I backed-up what I could to an external drive, opened the mini and installed an new (and larger capacity) hard disk. I put a fresh installation of OS X on it and restored my backed-up files and its been fine ever since.

 

[geissap]

There are alot of things this could be. I need a little more information to help you though.

Do you ever get the gray apple? Or the spinning gear?

Or just straight to a blank/gray screen?

First thing to do here is reset your PMU/SMU/SMC...check apple site on how to do this because It's different for different models of mac mini's.

After that boot it up to get to the gray screen and pop in your original install disc that came with your computer. Shut down the computer and start it back up holding down on the C-Key and see if it'll boot to the CD. If it boots to the CD go to Utilties up top and go to Disk Utility and take a look at the state of your drive.

Lots of options could occur here.

You may see your drive...but the partition will be grayed out.
-If it's grayed out trying hitting repair disk and see what comes up. If it comes up with multiple red errors. It's time for a good ol' Erase and Install. If it comes up green. Archive and Install this baby and you should be good.

You may see no drive at all.
-Means your MLB or HD is hosed

You may see your drive highlighted in red.
-Means your failing smart status and your drive is hosed.

If you can't even boot to the CD...more than likely you have a HD issue which could be many things. RAM, HD, or MLB.

Hope this helps a little bit.

 

[harixvirex]

Mac Mini Gray Screen - A solution which works at last

Atlast having tried a lot of options but invain..... Here is one thing which worked after


1) Tried booting from CD and "C" key holding - NO GO!!
2) Tried to perform a Network boot - NO GO!!
3) Tried to perform a Target Disk mode to reset MBR record using the Firewire cable and "T" key - NO GO!!
4) Tried to zapp PRAM by Apple+Optio+P+R ~ NO GO!!
5) Tried to reset only NVRAM by Apple+Optio+O+F ~ NO GO!!


At last....2 commands one after the other help me



1) Boot into Open Firmware using Apple+Optio+O+F
2) Type "reset-nvram"
3) Type "reset-all"

without the quotes....

Then i got a and the machine started booting into Leopard / Tiger.....


Was sucessful with 3 mac mini machine......

HTH...

Hari S

 

[justperry]

hi there

yesterday as i was using my mac mini it began acting slow, i closed all the programs open and restarted the computer, when restarted it does not boot up and only shows me a blank blue-grey screen....any suggestions on what to do??

A few people replied to Your thread and I am amazed by replies.
Why is it so that many times people reply with,Oh,Your harddisk is fried.
I myself had never any bad disk,and believe me,I used a lot of them and even after extensive use they never failed me(hardware).
I do have problems once in a while,but I could always repair the damage on the disk.
People,don't be so pessimistic!
A grey screen can mean a lot,for instance,Your permissions are wrong,or there are faults on the disk,if You happen to have diskwarrior try to use that after You tried and repair Your disk with(and startup with)your OSX cd.
Also,disks are cheap nowadays,get an external disk,get osx on that one and if you have problems with your internal startup from that one and repair it.
So,don't think the worst case until You really tried everything before.
Hope You can fix it.
Cheers Perry

 

[harixvirex]

my mac mini wont boot

There are possibilities of a HDD going bad too & hence i think people have commented with the same thought.

I have personally tried and come up with the steps which has been effective to so many people i know off and also personally to me with about 5 - 6 Mac Minis.