I'm trying to help my daughter long distance with a problem on the Mac Mini she got last Christmas. First Mac for her and I'm still using Windows XP so it's the blind leading the blind. The problem: She had left her computer on and was at AOL. When she came back to the computer, she found that the title bar and all the menus, including drop-down displayed a series of the letter "A" in black outline boxes. She is unable to read what should be there so she doesn't know what to click on to go anywhere.
Her e-mail works okay. She can go to Web sites and the pages read normally. She thinks she has a virus, but if she does, nobody else has it. Google failed to find anything about this.
I assume something is corrupt in OS X (Tiger) which requires a re-install. If this is correct, I need some help in telling her how to do this by telephone without her losing her data -- mostly music files. Or is there some simple fix such as a feature in OS X similar to System Restore in Windows XP by which she could revert to an image of her system prior to this problem?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Her e-mail works okay. She can go to Web sites and the pages read normally. She thinks she has a virus, but if she does, nobody else has it. Google failed to find anything about this.
I assume something is corrupt in OS X (Tiger) which requires a re-install. If this is correct, I need some help in telling her how to do this by telephone without her losing her data -- mostly music files. Or is there some simple fix such as a feature in OS X similar to System Restore in Windows XP by which she could revert to an image of her system prior to this problem?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.