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LordGuffington

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 31, 2010
3
0
Hi guys

I recently bought a Mac mini for my home theatre set-up for watching movies/tv, web surfing etc on the big screen. Also want to store all my media centrally and share with my other macs. It's all currently on external drives shared across my wifi. Initially I thought I needed to move into server territory so a friend lent me his OSX Server set-up stuff.

A few mins into the install I realised I was out of my depth. I don't have a domain name and some of the tech was waaaaay beyond my understanding. So I abandoned the install and deleted the server folder from my applications. I got Remote Desktop instead and things were looking good...my Macs are all working as I'd hoped....just need to back up (I'm thinking Drobo).

So shut down for the night but when I restart a fancy 'X' graphic plays followed by the OSX Server set-up menus. Dammit I thought I'd deleted all the server stuff. Obviously missed something.

I dont want to install the server anymore, even if I did my friend has taken the software and gone to India so I can't get hold of him for the serial which is required.

So I can't get beyond OSX Server set-up and back to my desktop. I thought I'd just start from scratch with the disc supplied when I bought the mini and restore to factory settings, but after shutting down, restarting whilst holding down C and inserting the disc I still get the fancy 'X' Graphic and the Server Set-up screen. Can't reset to factory settings and can't even eject the disk.

So I restarted connected via FW800 to my MBP and held down T to get to disk mode. From there I was able to eject the disk at last and I looked around for more server folders to delete (although left the Server Calender and Server Address Book folders in Applications alone in case I lost the apps altogether).

Shut down but still on restart I get the Fancy 'X' graphic and the server set-up. I just can't get past it and back to my desktop.

Also tried holding down Alt on restart but all I can do is activate the wifi and then select the main hard disk...but then I'm back to the Server Set-up. ARRGGGHHH!

Is there a way of bypassing this? some combination of keys to hold down? Or is there some code I need to delete to skip past the Server set-up stuff?

Any help very gratefully accepted...
 

SVT Amateur

macrumors 6502
Dec 22, 2006
421
1
Tyler, Texas
Like the above poster stated if you have Snow Leopard client software somewhere you can just install that instead - if not you can buy it for $29.

You can still run Snow Leopard Server strictly as client but you would still need the serial number in order to finish the installation. Honestly, if I were going to use the software strictly for client purposes I would just install Snow Leopard client as you don't have the unneeded server packages taking up space on your hard drive.
 

LordGuffington

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 31, 2010
3
0
Thanks guys

I ended up using my SL install disk to bypass the SLS set-up where I erased my HD through utilities options and started from scratch. Urgh!
 
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