Mac Mini wont boot

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Mac mini

The Mac mini family was first introduced in January of 2005.

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Kyle Wiens @kyle

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Mac Mini wont boot

I have a Mac Mini that has been 'freezing' causing frequent hard restarts. Now it won't boot at all, no Apple screen, sound, only the front light comes on. I have tried several restart options including holding power button while plugging power, also after start holding P,R,alt,cmd keys.........

My hope is it is memory - not main board - I really need to salvage the data on HDD.

Thanks.

(This is a question asked by noneone from our discussion forums that did not get an answer. We'll see if you guys can help!)

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My problem is similar, but not exactly the same. No matter which boot procedure I use, the same thing happens: On powering on with the tiny switch on the corner of my 4 year old Mac Mini, I get the chime and the Apple icon and the line that fills from left to right on the log in screen. The line slows down to a crawl and stops just past the middle. In 30 seconds or so the cursor arrow appears in the upper left corner of the black/gray screen. In a few more seconds the Desktop background appears in poor resolution along with the sign-in icon in the middle and the 3 choice buttons at the bottom of the screen. The arrow will disappear when any key is pressed. Screen is “frozen” in this appearance.

Only the tiny white light appears on the Mini. My track pad tests ok on another Mac.

I’m ready to go to a professional tech unless someone out there can help soon. Thanks in advance.

apiercex3 tarafından 20 Mar 2019

My MacMini started behaving more or less the way you guys have described, except it first started displaying some ramdom images on the display, like color stripes and dots and suddenly it ended up hard rebooting spontaneously. I hoped it was something about the memory sticks but unfortunately after taking it a professional tech he found out that the video board was gone. And since he told me that it would be cheaper to buy another used mac than to try to fix it, all that was left to do was ask the guy to take the Hard Drive out and mount it on usb HD case so that I could have access to everything that was in my macmini.

Marcos tarafından 2 Nis 2019

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jhecht @jhecht

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First test is to boot from your recovery CD. Put the CD in, and then restart the computer, while holding down the 'C' key. If it boots off the CD, at least some of your hardware is working.

Problem is, the Mac restore CD has no file manipulation functions - even though it should... So your next hurdle is to get a qualified tech to boot the 'puter with a Linux CD - (s)he can then recover your data to an external hard drive.

Another option is to have a tech remove the hard drive from the Mini, and connect it to another Mac, using an adapter kit. Even if the hard drive won't boot, it may still be possible to read it. This has to be done with another Mac, as the Mac file system is not very compatible with Windows computers.

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If you're booted to the system disk, you do have a small degree of control: launch Disk Utility (it's in one of the menus) and use its Restore function to clone your drive to an external, assuming the internal shows up at all.

colleenthompson tarafından 27 Ara 2009

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My problem is similar, but not exactly the same. No matter which boot procedure I use, the same thing happens: On powering on with the tiny switch on the corner of my 4 year old Mac Mini, I get the chime and the Apple icon and the line that fills from left to right on the log in screen. The line slows down to a crawl and stops just past the middle. In 30 seconds or so the cursor arrow appears in the upper left corner of the black/gray screen. In a few more seconds the Desktop background appears in poor resolution along with the sign-in icon in the middle and the 3 choice buttons at the bottom of the screen. The arrow will disappear when any key is pressed. Screen is “frozen” in this appearance.

Only the tiny white light appears on the Mini. My track pad tests ok on another Mac.

I’m ready to go to a professional tech unless someone out there can help soon. Thanks in advance. — apiercex3
My MacMini started behaving more or less the way you guys have described, except it first started displaying some ramdom images on the display, like color stripes and dots and suddenly it ended up hard rebooting spontaneously. I hoped it was something about the memory sticks but unfortunately after taking it a professional tech he found out that the video board was gone. And since he told me that it would be cheaper to buy another used mac than to try to fix it, all that was left to do was ask the guy to take the Hard Drive out and mount it on usb HD case so that I could have access to everything that was in my macmini. — Marcos
If you're booted to the system disk, you do have a small degree of control: launch Disk Utility (it's in one of the menus) and use its Restore function to clone your drive to an external, assuming the internal shows up at all. — colleenthompson

score 3 · Answer 1 · 2009-11-04T10:21:45-07:00

natalia47 @natallica

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Try re-seating your RAM and see if that helps. I had the same symptom (front light on and nothing else) when I first upgraded my RAM. The problem went away when I re-seated the RAM.

I actually had my logic board fail on my C2D Mini about 10 months after I purchased it and when that happened, nothing would come on. No lights...nothing! I was hoping it was just the power brick, but it ended up being the logic board.

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Danno @macologist İtibar: 343 10 8 · Answer 2 · 2009-11-04T18:04:28-07:00

Danno @macologist

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IF it is a G4 Mini...you could try booting into Open Firmware: on power button push, hold down "option+command+O+F". If it works, you should see a white screen with small black text.

At the prompt, type...

1. reset-nvram (press Return)

then type...

2. set-defaults (press Return),and

then type...

3. reset-all (press Return)

Your Mini should then restart. Maybe this will help. Good luck.

Also, might swap RAM out with known good memory. Reseating bad RAM = bad RAM. ( Can run Mini without the top in place for troubleshooting...just be careful.)

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colleenthompson @colleenthompson İtibar: 1,6b 17 11 · Answer 3 · 2009-11-10T12:03:03-07:00

colleenthompson @colleenthompson

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If you're not getting a chime, it may be the RAM or logic board.

If it was the hard drive, you'd at least make it past the chime.

If the mini is DOA you can always remove the hard drive and get the data off, assuming the drive is ok. There are inexpensive, universal USB adapters (Other World has a nice one for about $30, macsales.com).

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Wavey @wavey İtibar: 25 1 · Answer 4 · 2009-11-04T10:58:09-07:00

Wavey @wavey

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It could also be the power supply. I have recently had my Mac Pro do a similar thing, where the light comes on, but nothing else.. turned out the power supply had failed

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wil @wil36499 İtibar: 13 1 · Answer 5 · 2009-11-04T10:37:17-07:00

wil @wil36499

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If you have access to another mac and a firewire cable, try starting up the Mini in target disk mode, by holding the 'T' key down on the keyboard while starting up. If it comes up with the firewire symbol on a blue background, you're in target disk mode and you can use the firewire cable to attach to another mac. This will allow you to get your files copied off.

wil

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Tomek Wala @tomekwala İtibar: 13 1 · Answer 6 · 2010-04-22T11:50:01-07:00

Tomek Wala @tomekwala

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This is some great advice. I was going to give up on my trusty Mini as I was convinced it is the logic board. It turned out to be just memory. Oddly enough both stick would not work, but once I put in some fresh ones it all works like charm. I still don't get a beep when the Mini starts up but it works great.

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spike @spike46805 İtibar: 1 · Answer 7 · 2011-02-21T13:34:09-07:00

spike @spike46805

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Thanks for your input. I tried switching back to the original memory and the mini booted up! I was also giving up thinking it was the logic board. Yeahhh

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Jeff Jarvis @jeffjarvis İtibar: 1 · Answer 8 · 2016-03-15T08:40:41-07:00

Jeff Jarvis @jeffjarvis

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My problem is that, you can power up to get the login in screen. After you log in with your user name and password, the home screen may come up, dock shows up and your icons are in the desktop. You can run your cursor through the dock with magnify on the icons. you click something on the dock and that is when it locks up. Is this just the beginning of what you have or do I have something different?

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@Jeff - This is a very old question! How about creating your very own question with all of your systems details and paste this over to it.

Dan tarafından 15 Mar 2016

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Mac mini

Mac Mini wont boot

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