MacMini problem new user

E

erschov

Registered
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.
 
The good news first: you do *not* have to worry about viruses, since there are none for Mac OS X.

You should run the routine maintenance procedures:

1. Repair Disk Permissions

2. Perform File System Check in Single User Mode

Both procedures are well documented on macosx.com and Apple.com - A Yahoo! and/or Google search should also lead to step-by-step instructions.

I hope this information helps...

patrice
http://www.patriceschneider.com/apple-osx/blog/
 
Thanks for the response. I'll look into the suggestions you gave me and try to translate them to my Windows-trained old brain so I'll know what I'm talking about when I try to explain them to my daughter. I did get her to run a disk check in her utilitities folder (I think) and it came out okay.

By the way, the first virus for OS X was found back in February. See: http://tinyurl.com/afxbr I don't think it's very distructive and its symptoms are not what my daughter's machine is producing.

Gracias.
 
Thanks for the "virus" link.

I would take that story with a bucket of salt... it appears on the site of a company that sells an anti-virus service... so they want to make sure people keep worrying... I agree we should not take "no virus on OS X" for granted - but if the "virus" mentioned in the story had been a serious threat, it would have definitely received a lot of attention on all the Apple Mac forums on the net; and beyond...

Back to your problem:

You cannot run File System Check from Disk Utilities, it can only be done in Single User Mode. From Disk Utility you can Repair Permissions & do a Disk Check - the latter is not the same as File System Check.

Do please keep us posted on whether you manage to solve your daughter's problem.

patrice
http://www.patriceschneider.com/apple-osx/blog/
 
I'm not familiar with the AOL software but I assume that she has quit the application? If not then please do so.

Otherwise, since it hasn't been mentioned: the first thing to do is reboot the Mac.
Solves a lot of problems!
 
She has closed AOL and can re-open it. And yes, the first thing I had her do was reboot. She has rebooted many times since this first appeared, and I think I mentioned before that the problem even shows when she boots in safe mode.

Thanks for your interest and suggestions.
 
erschov,

I'd hold off before following the suggested troubleshooting techniques. This sounds like an unusual problem. If I understand your message correctly, the menu bar and menu text at the top of the screen has been changed to a strange character (letter A with box around it).

It's unlikely that a disk check or repairing permissions would fix the problem.

It may possibly be a font problem. You might ask her if she has deleted any fonts (or if she has deleted anything at all). There is a utility program included with Macs called FontBook. It allows the user to activate and deactivate fonts and so on. Sounds like the needed system font is unavailable.

Another thing to try: Have her click the Apple menu (blue apple in upper left) and click "System Preferences". Then click "International." She should see a list of languages. Have her check to make sure English is first on the list (assuming that's your native language).

Let us know if any of this helps.

Doug
 

Attachments

  • International.jpg
    International.jpg
    56.2 KB · Views: 2
Obviously I'm more concerned about this than my daughter is. Actually she is very leery of doing anything on her computer outside of clicking on her e-mail and using iTunes for her iPod. I have downloaded AppleJack and will either send it to her to try or wait until she comes home and I can do these things myself. As for checking her fonts, I doubt she will be able to accomplish this without some help. When she clicks on the apple symbol, her choices are only lines of the letter "A" inside the black outline boxes. I really appreciate your suggestions and wonder if you find it strange that I am 73 years old trying to help a 28 year old with her Mac. Shouldn't this be the other way around?
 
Hah! Yes.

For what it's worth, System Preferences is fourth on the list (from the top) on the Apple menu.

She'd probably do best at this point to reinstall. If she puts the system CD (or DVD) in the drive, restarts the computer (NINTH! on the Apple menu or hold down the power button for several seconds until it turns off, then press the power button to start the machine) and holds down C she will boot from the CD / DVD.

I recommend she select "Archive and Install". This will archive the current system in a folder off root and reinstall the operating system leaving her data intact. Of course, as with any computer ** DATA LOSS IS A POSSIBILITY. ** She should back up important data (such as music purchased from the iTunes music store!!) before reinstalling.

She shouldn't have the "Boxed A" problem when booting from the CD / DVD.

Doug

P.S. It's a sad societal reality that girls and women tend to be turned off to technology. Researched and documented.

For those of you with daughters, I recommend doing everything you can to turn them on to mathematics, science, and computers. They face lots of societal pressure to avoid those pursuits. Bad news. Think about how much technology we use, how much people need to know for their careers.
 
Bless you for this reply. It's just what I needed; the specific item to click on when its name is covered by those letters in a box, and which kind of install to do to attempt to save the data. I've already walked her through a boot from the install CD, so she knows she can do that.

Funny thing about women and tech. I encouraged both of my daughters to look into computer science in college. Neither did. The older daughter is the intranet manager for an international company and once ran a forum on AOL. The younger daughter is happy to use her computer for e-mail and music at home but is quite competent on her work computer in connection with her work as a newspaper reporter.

Again, thanks dktrickey for understanding what I was looking for.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top