2011 Mid Mac Mini unable to boot into Mac OSX - Reinstall seems to be the only option

[Dataexar]

Hello everyone! I'm having trouble on my mid 2011 2.3GHz i5 Mac mini running Mac OSX 10.7.2 Lion - I can't boot into Mac OS X.

When I turn on the Mac mini, a gray screen flash, the apple logo shows up with a loading bar on the bottom, it would only load to 20%... then a non-stop spinning gear shows up. I have my mac mini running for hours and the gear just keep on spinning!

I've tried everything apple suggested except for reinstall Mac OSX: Reset SMC, reset NVRAM, perform safe mode(didn't work), fix disk in disk utility(didn't work either), check cables, removed third-party RAM(4GB samsung RAM) etc.

I do not want to lose my files, I do not have a backup of my Mac, but I have installed Windows 7 (few months ago) on a different partition on the same harddisk. I can boot into Windows fine and able to access to my mac files.

Reinstall Mac OSX lion seems to be the only option. Does anyone know if there's software to backup my mac files on Windows?

If I transfer my mac files to a new Mac OS will I be able to run application that have been installed previous without installing them again?

What is the best solution to have my old things the way it is on new Mac OS without setting things over again? Is it possible? Please let me know.

Please let me know!
-John

 

[davids8477]

Hello everyone! I'm having trouble on my mid 2011 2.3GHz i5 Mac mini running Mac OSX 10.7.2 Lion - I can't boot into Mac OS X.

When I turn on the Mac mini, a gray screen flash, the apple logo shows up with a loading bar on the bottom, it would only load to 20%... then a non-stop spinning gear shows up. I have my mac mini running for hours and the gear just keep on spinning!

I've tried everything apple suggested except for reinstall Mac OSX: Reset SMC, reset NVRAM, perform safe mode(didn't work), fix disk in disk utility(didn't work either), check cables, removed third-party RAM(4GB samsung RAM) etc.

I do not want to lose my files, I do not have a backup of my Mac, but I have installed Windows 7 (few months ago) on a different partition on the same harddisk. I can boot into Windows fine and able to access to my mac files.

Reinstall Mac OSX lion seems to be the only option. Does anyone know if there's software to backup my mac files on Windows?

If I transfer my mac files to a new Mac OS will I be able to run application that have been installed previous without installing them again?

What is the best solution to have my old things the way it is on new Mac OS without setting things over again? Is it possible? Please let me know.

Please let me know!
-John

You may want to purchase a copy of DISK WARRIOR. You can boot off the dvd and it will do a much better job of rebuilding your hard drive file structure - which can on rare occasions get corrupted. It's saved me a lot of work on several occasions.

 

[davidlv]

You may want to purchase a copy of DISK WARRIOR. You can boot off the dvd and it will do a much better job of rebuilding your hard drive file structure - which can on rare occasions get corrupted. It's saved me a lot of work on several occasions.

The 2011 Mac mini I bought doesn't have a DVD drive, I think the last model that had one was made in 2010, not sure about that. If it doesn't have one, you need a bootable external drive with Disk Warrior installed - either firewire or USB will work - and run DW while booted up from the external drive, running either SL or Lion will work. In many cases that will fix the HD, if there are no hardware issues involved. Definitely worth a try if your data is valuable. Make sure you use at least version 4.3 or the latest 4.4. The Alsoft HP has an option to buy the software online/download with the DVD disk shipped later.
http://www.alsoft.com/
DW has saved me a lot of trouble over the years, highly recommended.

 

[Riverrun]

If ou're running Lion 10.7.2, the DW 4.3 version will not work so make sure you D/L the 4.4 from the website.