Stop sign at boot!

[hardanger]

At Christmas I updated my failing Mac mini original hard drive to a SSD, and upgraded to Yosemite at the same time. I used the Trim enabler app to enable TRIM and disable kept signing, this worked well. Sporadically since then on boot, the no entry sign will show for a few seconds, but will then disappear and the boot will continue as usual.
however, a few dayas ago, in an attempt to fix a much lesser issue of a mission control desktop being created every time I boot, I started the Mac in Safe Mode. This was fine, but when i then tried to restart in normal mode, the stop sign came, and stayed.

I Tried to follow Cindoris instructions on how to recover from this issue via Terminal commands in Recovry mode, but it would always get to the last command before it came up with an error message along the lines of something not being able to be found.

I Keep a Time Machine backup on constantly and following the issue, I went into recovery mode and recovered to an earlier, safe time.
On completion, when the Mac auto booted, the no go error sign came, but thankfully went.

I Then used the Trim enable app to turn on trim, which it said was off, and on the restart it does to disable kept signing, the error sign occurred!

Any help would be much appreciated!

Mac mini, OS X Yosemite (10.10)

 

[h9826790]

On a "normal" boot, even though with TRIM enabled, the no go sign should not be there, even though just few seconds.

I suggest you that reinstall the OS. No need to do a clean install, just run the installer again. It will keep all your files, data, and basically the setting as well. Of course, you can do that in recovery mode. Simple and safe.

TRIM will be disabled after OSX re-installation. You can then run TRIM Enabler again to enable TRIM.

It may be easier and quicker than diagnosis the problem and look the the correct solution.

 

[hardanger]

Good shout! But....

Great idea - thanks.

When I run Recovery via cmd+R, I can't reinstall OS X, as the Recovery feature uses OS X Lion for some reason - the software that my Mac shipped with, and it says it can't install an older OS. So if I follow these steps:
http://osxdaily.com/2014/10/16/make-os-x-yosemite-boot-install-drive/

Could I do the re-install without wiping files & settings please?

 

[luftx]

Great idea - thanks.

When I run Recovery via cmd+R, I can't reinstall OS X, as the Recovery feature uses OS X Lion for some reason - the software that my Mac shipped with, and it says it can't install an older OS. So if I follow these steps:
http://osxdaily.com/2014/10/16/make-os-x-yosemite-boot-install-drive/

Could I do the re-install without wiping files & settings please?

That's how I created my created my boot flash drive and was able to install Yosemite again to get it working when I had issues like you're having. All of the files and settings were there after the re-load.

Robert

 

[hardanger]

Cool!

I'll give it a go - thanks.

 

[h9826790]

When I run Recovery via cmd+R, I can't reinstall OS X, as the Recovery feature uses OS X Lion for some reason - the software that my Mac shipped with, and it says it can't install an older OS. So if I follow these steps:
http://osxdaily.com/2014/10/16/make-os-x-yosemite-boot-install-drive/

Could I do the re-install without wiping files & settings please?

It seems that you didn't have the recovery partition on your SSD. I guess that you cloned the OS from the HDD to SSD without the recovery partition. Otherwise CMD + R should take you to the recovery partition, but not the internet recovery.

The normal recovery partition will allow you to re-install the current OSX. And internet recovery will only allow you to install the original OSX, in your case, it's ML.

Anyway, it seems that you will go for the flash drive root. Make a proper installation this time should clear the problem, and hopefully also give you back the normal recovery partition.

 

[hardanger]

Anyway, it seems that you will go for the flash drive root. Make a proper installation this time should clear the problem, and hopefully also give you back the normal recovery partition.

Ahh you are right! It does take me to Internet Recovery. A proper installation? I'm guessing that just means following the process as we described, instead of a clean install.

 

[hardanger]

Well after restarting my Mac after about a day, without doing anything - it seems to be working normally again! Still occasionally seeing the stop sign, but it always disappears after a few seconds like before. I reinstalled the OS anyway - although that doesn't seem to have changed much - and it feels like it might well be a hardware related issue due to the inconsistencies, maybe with the 3rd Party SATA cable connecting the 3rd Party SSD. Whatever the issue, I can only hope it doesn't appear again!

Thanks for all your help!