Mac Mini turns itself off during boot?

[msaz87]

Hey guys,

I have a 3-or-4-year-old Mac Mini Core 2 that has just in the past day or so stopped wanting to turn on. The symptoms started with OS freezing up, so I had to shut it off by holding down the power button. When trying to boot it back up, the apple icon showed along with the loading indicator and it never started up.

I turned it off and let it sit for a day or so, but now the same loading screen shows for about 30 seconds to a minute until it shuts down again.

I tried switching outlets, opening it up and cleaning it of dust and still no dice.

Any ideas?

Thanks so much for any help!

 

[msaz87]

update:
I replaced the hard drive which now has the mini booting up and staying on, but flashing the file icon with a question mark in the middle. I tried holding C, X and shift (individually) during boot (with the install disk in) and none of them got me into reinstalling the OS. The only boot command that has worked is command+option+p+r to zap the PRAM.

Any help is greatly appreciated -- thanks!

 

[iSavant]

With OS disk in optical drive... hold Option key while booting

try dat

 

[msaz87]

With OS disk in optical drive... hold Option key while booting

try dat

That elicits a different response... the mouse cursor appears, but the folder with the question mark and the loading icon do not. The problem is, nothing seems to happen after -- the cursor is there, but nothing else.

Thanks for the help!