Is my Mac mini dead

M

MidnightJava

Registered
Can you all help me do my due diligence in deciding whether my wife's Mac mini has given up the ghost? She called me at work and told me that while launching a couple apps at once it suddenly froze. She could move the mouse pointer, but the desktop was frozen and unresponsive.

Repeated reboots just result in the gray screen with the dark gray apple logo in the center. The hardware LED comes on, and I hear the startup chime.

It was rather hot in the room where we have it, so I tried giving it a rest near a cooling vent. Also tried various startup key commands, such as Shift, Cmd-S, C (with a bootable disk in the CD ROM), and T (with a firewire external disk attached). When I do the latter, I see the firewire logo floating on the screen, but nothing further. I also tried holding down cmd-opt-P-R to reset the PRAM/NVRAM (held it down for three startup chimes), and still I don't get past the apple logo.

It's a Mac mini PPC, a couple years old, I think. Is there anything else I can try? Is the Mac in fact dead? My wife uses it for her graphic design business, so I need to do something quick. I'm also assuming that paying for repair is not a cost-effective solution, especially since it's a PPC. I'm a former hardware tech, and not afraid to get my hands in it, having nothing else to lose. So if anyone has any ideas along those lines, I'm game. I just don't know much about the Mac the Mac ahrdware, don't even see how to open the case.
 
'She could move the mouse pointer, but the desktop was frozen and unresponsive.' - the 'Desktop' is always frozen and unresponsive, unless you use a third party utility to replace the 'Desktop' (graphic file) with an animation. Perhaps, you mean that 'Finder' and / or the 'Dock' are non-functional?

'Repeated reboots just result in the gray screen with the dark gray apple logo in the center. The hardware LED comes on, and I hear the startup chime.' - this is an indication that 'the world’s most advanced operating system' has itself hic-cup'ed, resulting in the Macs' boot code's inability to find a valid boot-able version of MacOS X.

'It was rather hot in the room where we have it, so I tried giving it a rest near a cooling vent.' - nice idea. I continue to witness an Intel based Mac Mini, as well as other Macs and PCs, which work just fine - in a 30+ C environment, with some air flow.

'... and T (with a firewire external disk attached). When I do the latter, I see the firewire logo floating on the screen, but nothing further.' - which is exactly as it should be. Once a Mac is booted into 'Target' mode, and connected to another Mac (via a FireWire cable), the now 'target' Mac should appear on the 'Desktop' of the other Mac.

'I also tried holding down cmd-opt-P-R to reset the PRAM/NVRAM (held it down for three startup chimes), and still I don't get past the apple logo.' - true, since your Mac no longer identifies its currently installed copy of MacOS X - as bootable.

'Is there anything else I can try?' - yes, re-install MacOS X and all its needed updates. [Welcome to the 'Windoze' way of solving MacOS X problems!]

'Is the Mac in fact dead?' - most likely not. Just re-install MacOS X and all its needed updates.

'My wife ..., so I need to do something quick.' - then start re-installing MacOS X, and all its needed updates.

'I'm also assuming that paying for repair is not a cost-effective solution, especially since it's a PPC. I'm a former hardware tech, and not afraid to get my hands in it, having nothing else to lose. So if anyone has any ideas along those lines, I'm game. I just don't know much about the Mac the Mac ahrdware, don't even see how to open the case.' - your assessment and conclusion are incorrect, and overkill. Relax, backup your current data onto another Mac, and then ... start re-installing MacOS X, and all its needed updates.
 
Thanks for your response. I was misunderstanding what booting with the Target key means. I thought it would try to boot from a Firewire "disk" conneted on the Firewire port. Didn't know it was intended to be another Mac connected there. I don't have another Mac, but I do have a Firewire external drive with a bootable backup that is synced every day.

So I shouldn't have to re-load the OS and apply all the updates. I just need to get it restored from backup. Until now I was unable to get the Mac to boot off a bootable CD in the super drive or from the bootable Firewire drive, using C and cmd-opt-shift-delete startup keys, respectively.

But I just now got it to spit out the CD by holding down the mouse key on boot. Then I was able to boot successfully from the Firewire external drive, after I realized that I was pressing the wrong Delete key. I use CC Cloner for my backup sw, which lets me do a reverse clone, to clone the external drive to the internal drive and make it bootable.

So if I do that, will I be able to boot from the internal drive afterwards? I'll go ahead and give it a try; but I'm wondering how the Mac got confused on where it's OS is. Did the boot drive get corrupted, in which case the reverse clone should fix it. Or was something confused in the firmware? Is this a random event, or is there something the user does to cause this?
 
MidnightJava said:
Also tried various startup key commands, such as Shift, Cmd-S, C (with a bootable disk in the CD ROM), and T (with a firewire external disk attached). When I do the latter, I see the firewire logo floating on the screen, but nothing further.
Click to expand...

You'll need another mac, not just a FW external drive, to connect your mini to with a FW cable,
then boot your mini with the "T" for target mode.
Your mini should now appear on the other macs desktop as a drive, allowing you to hopefully salvage your data.
Then I would suggest a reformat and new install of OS X.

jb.
 
Well it looks like I may have a hosed internal drive. I can boot from the external drive using startup keys, but I can't seem to get the system to recognize the internal drive. CC Cloner doesn't see the volume, Disk Utility hangs forever trying to get drive info (doesn't even find the backup volume before hanging), and system profiler hangs if I try to look at ATA or Super Drive info. All the while I hear a rhythmic disk sound every 3 seconds or so coming from the mini (can't tell if it's the CD/DVD drive or the internal hard drive).

Even trying to shut the system down, it hangs. And I went into preferences and set the external drive as the startup volume, but it hangs when I try to Restart, or even just try to exit the Preferences app.

SO should I zap the VVRAM/PRAM again? Anything else I Can do? Or does the internal drive need to be replaced? I did successfully remove and replace the cover before getting the backup drive to boot. So is it pretty doable to replace the internal drive myself, if it comes to that?
 
MidnightJava said:
SO should I zap the VVRAM/PRAM again? Anything else I Can do? Or does the internal drive need to be replaced? I did successfully remove and replace the cover before getting the backup drive to boot. So is it pretty doable to replace the internal drive myself, if it comes to that?
Click to expand...

Try replacing or at least removing the internal drive. Now you should be able to boot from CD or an external drive and it should work stable (if the internal drive is bad). If not stable, something else (and most likely more serious) is bad too, maybe check memory.


Good luck, Kees
 
'... I was misunderstanding what booting with the Target key means. I thought it would try to boot from a Firewire "disk" conneted on the Firewire port.' - press and keep pressed the '<option>' key during the boot process. All possible 'boot' volumes (installed internally or connected eternally) will be listed. Once 45+ seconds pass and the cursor changes to an 'arrow', click on the external FireWire drive, and then click on the '-->' button. In most cases, the selected drive will become the boot drive.

'I just need to get it restored from backup.' - correct, assuming each drive has exactly the same items. Naturally, if only a few additions / deletions occurred on the internal boot drive - such adjustments to FireWire to internal copy should be easy to perform.

'But I just now got it to spit out the CD by holding down the mouse key on boot.' - such a procedure has been a Macintosh procedure since 1984 (?), when the Macs came with floppy disk drives.

'... the wrong Delete key' - this is not such key. There is a '<delete>' key; and on 101+ keyboards - a '<del>' key.

'but I'm wondering how the Mac got confused on where it's OS is.' - welcome to MacOS X.
'Did the boot drive get corrupted, in which case the reverse clone should fix it.' - The drive is most likely not (itself completely) corrupted; but, a piece of information has been altered such that the drive is no longer a valid boot drive, and its contents may / may not be obtainable.

'Or was something confused in the firmware?' - no.
'Is this a random event,' - yes; but quite common with respect to MacOS X, not System 9.2.2 or earlier.
'is there something the user does to cause this?' - no.

-----

'Well it looks like I may have a hosed internal drive. I can boot from the external drive using startup keys, but I can't seem to get the system to recognize the internal drive.' - that is a pity.

You could try booting from the Apple provided installation disc, and run 'Disk Utility'. Other utilities to consider are 'DiskWarrior' and 'TechTool Pro'.

See 'iFixIt - Installing Hard Drive' for step by step instructions.
 
Happy ending. Bad internal drive was the problem. Twenty minutes with a putty knife, a screw driver, and a PDF file from iFixit (thanks barhar), and it's good as new. Better actually, since I replaced it with a 7200 RPM drive. Thank you all for your help. It seemed at first that it wasn't able to boot from any drive, and your reassurance and advice helped me come up with the right start key.

I can't resist making the following public service announcement. If you don't have your data backed up, and you like your data, implement a backup solution ASAP. Other than the money and effort spent on replacing the failed hardware, this was a trivial event for me, thanks to a bootable backup. Otherwise I would be spending serious money and more time, trying to recover data from a failed hard drive. Even if the hardware had not failed, it would have taken many hours of tedious effort to boot from some other source, identify and copy all the data I wanted to recover, reload the OS, apply all the updates, copy my data back, re-install my apps, and then configure the OS and apps. Instead I recovered all the above with a single click, and a 45-minute unattended operation, thanks to a bootable synchronized backup on an external drive.

If you have data, you will have data loss. This is the third time in about two years that I've had to recover my boot disk, although the first drive failure.

You can buy good external drives just about anywhere. Make sure you get one with a Firewire port, however. Although many manufacturers advertise USB drives as being Mac-compatible, there's an Apple idiosynchrocy (imagine that) that prevents a USB drive from being made bootable. For backup software I use Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC), a free backup program. I'm sure there are other good backup apps as well, but CCC has done well for me.
 
MidnightJava said:
Although many manufacturers advertise USB drives as being Mac-compatible, there's an Apple idiosynchrocy (imagine that) that prevents a USB drive from being made bootable.
Click to expand...

I'm glad my mini's external USB drive hasn't heard that it's not supposed to be bootable.

jb.
 
jbarley said:
I'm glad my mini's external USB drive hasn't heard that it's not supposed to be bootable.

jb.
Click to expand...

I guess I should have pointed out explicitly that my experience is with a ppc Mini, although I did mention it way back in the original post. Anyway, I found this article which confirms that USB drives can't be made bootable for ppc Macs, but that the problem was apparently resolved with intel Macs. I assume you have an intel Mini?

Firewire drives are a bit more expensive than USB drives, but I've read some articles (here's an example) that claim Firewire is faster than USB 2.0, even though it has a slower bit rate-- because the architecture is faster (peer to peer for FW vs master-Slave for USB). Sounds like a familiar argument, doesn't it, that chip architecture matters more than CPU clock speed? We don't hear this particular argument anymore, now that Mac uses intel chips.

A faster architecture that trumps bit rate is certainly a plausible argument, but I don't know enough about it to assess whether it's actually a valid argument in the case of FW vs. USB. Benchmark tests are also context-dependent, so it may be that each architecture is fastest with certain usage patterns.
 
PC Magazine did comparison tests between Firewire external hard drives and USB 2.0 external drives when the USB 2 drives started coming out and found that the Firewire drives were significantly faster. Firewire drivers on OS X have been better than the USB drivers (not sure if that's still true today), so Firewire is?was quite a bit faster than USB 2 on OS X.

I tend to trust PC MAG labs. They've been hardware testing for decades.

Firewire also allows target disk mode and IP over Firewire, two features I've made use of. IP over Firewire is faster than Ethernet 100.

Interestingly enough, in your case it wasn't a fault in OS X. No operating system can magically fix failed hardware. And Barhar, the original Mac OS had its share of drawbacks. I wouldn't want to go back to the bad old days of no memory protection, manually adjusting memory allocation, cooperative multitasking, etc. I would like OS X to have more of the GUI elegance of the Mac OS, though.

Doug
 
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