Mac Mini Help

[adn rcd dly]

Hey guys I'm wondering if this is a common problem; I can't seem to start up my Mac Mini! Do you guys know what I can do? It just sits at the Apple screen and does nothing. We also tried starting up with Apple + Option+P+R and Apple+Option+F+O, and with a startup disk with Option held down, and selecting the "Main Volume" and nothing! The jackass in India on Apple Support didn't help me out either, because I have to pay for the privelege of having him speak to me. Any suggestions????

 

[CanadaRAM]

Lets get this straight -- the machine won't boot if you

1) detach all peripherals except for the mouse and keyboard
2) put the original OSX CD into the drive,
3) reboot, and hold the "C" key down all the way through the boot procedure (this may take several minutes, booting from CD takes a long time)

If it fails to boot now, you have a hardware problem. Is the Mini under warranty? Take it to your nearest Apple Authorized service centre for repair under warranty.

(selecting main volume after starting with Option is not the plan -- that just instructs the machine to boot from your hard drive which you already know has a b0rked OS on it. You should have selected the OSX DVD to boot from)

If you can boot from the DVD, then using the Disk utility under the top of screen menus, run a Repair disk and a Repatir permissions. Try booting again. If it doesn't work, probably try a "Archive and Install" to reinstall the OSX.

 

[adn rcd dly]

thanks man. we did the archive and install, backed everything up and did a fresh install.

your help was greatly appreciated