asked on

mac mini won't start

When I power on I get a screen with just the Apple symbol in the middle. It doesn't respond to any keypresses, and when I press CapsLock and/or NumLock those lights on the keyboard don't light. On one powerOn instance I did see a progress bar slowly filling in under the Apple symbol. I took that to be an OS update taking place, but I didn't stay with it to see what happened when it finished.

Is there something like SafeMode in the Mac world? Hopefully with some repair options?

SOLUTION

strung

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

David Favor

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

Ronald Hicks

ASKER

I tried the Shift+PowerOn a couple of times; nothing. Then the Option+PowerOn. I think on the second try, maybe the first I again got the Apple symbol and a progress bar. I stayed with it and eventually got a signon prompt. Then I got a variety of spinning wheels, which I interpreted to be some repair routine running. Eventually I got a menu bar, then desktop icons, then the dock. I checked for documents and they seemed to be all there. Not trusting to luck, I copied the docs to an external drive, I'm so glad I did because I've not been able to get it to restart again at all, even with Option+PowerOn. I think that I'll pull the drive and test it with CrystalLite. And I might just let this MacMini go bye-bye. I use it only to access financial sites because I've thought the Apple ecosystem is a little more secure. But I might switch to one of my Linux machines for that purpose for the same reason. Thanks to you both. I decided on "best" and "assisting" based on quantity of information provided.