My Mini doesn't boot

[Stan Mikulenka]

Hi Everyone
I restarted My Mini after having it running for a while, & it comes to the grey Apple Logo & that's it...
Is there anything I should try?...

 

[Elbert C]

Hi Everyone
I restarted My Mini after having it running for a while, & it comes to the grey Apple Logo & that's it...
Is there anything I should try?...

Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup

 

[Fishrrman]

I had an instance of a "no boot at the gray screen", and it was nothing more than a corrupted Finder prefs plist file.

Move it to the trash, reboot, and… back to normal.

However, you have to have a "second boot source" to find and manipulate this file.

That's a heck of a lot easier than doing a "clean install" via the recovery partition.

This is why I recommend that EVERYONE maintain a bootable, external cloned drive. Can be 'way more useful in a "can't boot" situation than a dozen Time Machine backups….

(Aside: I suppose moving a particular file can be done using terminal while in the recovery partition, but I don't know the commands, and doubt that too many would be able to do this in a "moment of extreme need" in any case...)