My McGremlins Are On Strike.
Let me preface this my stating that I am the Anti-Geek - to the best of my knowledge, my Mac is run by a community of gremlins, which have recently gone on strike. However I follow instructions very well.
Here's the deal, and I'll probably give you too much information rather than err on the side of not enough:
A few months ago, while writing a screenplay in Final Draft. I noticed that I was receiving spam, and the subject lines were very often phrases that I had typed that week. Very odd, but when I asked around, the general consensus was that I was being paranoid.
Flash forward:
My gremlin's work ethic has been lacking. Frankly, they've become rather lazy little buggers, and it took them forever to load a simple application, or for them to deliver the little format menu thing in Word (it would literally creep down the screen).
I also found that documents and jpeg files were being sent to strange places - totally misfiled, making it very difficult to find anything.
This would never do.
I was deleting a bunch of old files, hoping this would speed things up and I found that my screenplay - the one that kept popping up in my spam - had been redated to December 1, 1969.
Odd.
I called a friend of mine, a card-carrying member of the MacGuru Tribe. He sent me an article on some things I could do to speed up my mini, and I followed them:
I cleared out some option thing in my preferences; I unchecked the automatic start up boxes on those things I didn't need; I installed monolingual and removed a bunch of old languages; and I installed xslimmer and stripped the Intel code from my ... whatever it is - my computer brain.
Viola! My mini was humming! Faster than ever! Woo hoo!
So last night I'm working on a graphics project, and the gremlins went on strike. My computer totally bogged down. I had a few windows open, and I started x-ing out of them, thinking maybe I had too much going on.
Boy howdy, did I: For some reason, Iphoto had decided to begin downloading pictures. The little message thing at the bottom said I had over twenty thousand images still to download. Ack!!
As I was closing Iphoto out, I get a message that I have updates ready for download. At this point it's 4 am, so I closed all my work, downloaded the updates, turned off my computer and went to bed.
This morning, it took for EVER for the gremlins to wake up. I got a gray screen with the little whirly thing for like, five full minutes before the blue screen came up.
So I'm thinking wiping and reloading OSX might be my best bet.
I've archived my entourage files and moved them to an external hard drive, backed all my docs, music and pictures up to CD, and moved an alias of Firefox to my external hard drive, so I think I'm ready to go.
BUT
When I put the start up disk into the slot and click on install OSX, the gremlins tell me that I can't do it because I don't have Classic 9 installed.
Arrgh!
As to specs: I have a Mac Mini, and it's running a Power PC processor. That's about all I know.
I would appreciate any thoughts, suggestions, or advice - just keep in mind that I fully admit to being the village idiot - my understanding of technology both beginning and ending with the modern cheese grater - so please use tiny, English words.
Thanks so, so much!
Here's the deal, and I'll probably give you too much information rather than err on the side of not enough:
A few months ago, while writing a screenplay in Final Draft. I noticed that I was receiving spam, and the subject lines were very often phrases that I had typed that week. Very odd, but when I asked around, the general consensus was that I was being paranoid.
Flash forward:
My gremlin's work ethic has been lacking. Frankly, they've become rather lazy little buggers, and it took them forever to load a simple application, or for them to deliver the little format menu thing in Word (it would literally creep down the screen).
I also found that documents and jpeg files were being sent to strange places - totally misfiled, making it very difficult to find anything.
This would never do.
I was deleting a bunch of old files, hoping this would speed things up and I found that my screenplay - the one that kept popping up in my spam - had been redated to December 1, 1969.
Odd.
I called a friend of mine, a card-carrying member of the MacGuru Tribe. He sent me an article on some things I could do to speed up my mini, and I followed them:
I cleared out some option thing in my preferences; I unchecked the automatic start up boxes on those things I didn't need; I installed monolingual and removed a bunch of old languages; and I installed xslimmer and stripped the Intel code from my ... whatever it is - my computer brain.
Viola! My mini was humming! Faster than ever! Woo hoo!
So last night I'm working on a graphics project, and the gremlins went on strike. My computer totally bogged down. I had a few windows open, and I started x-ing out of them, thinking maybe I had too much going on.
Boy howdy, did I: For some reason, Iphoto had decided to begin downloading pictures. The little message thing at the bottom said I had over twenty thousand images still to download. Ack!!
As I was closing Iphoto out, I get a message that I have updates ready for download. At this point it's 4 am, so I closed all my work, downloaded the updates, turned off my computer and went to bed.
This morning, it took for EVER for the gremlins to wake up. I got a gray screen with the little whirly thing for like, five full minutes before the blue screen came up.
So I'm thinking wiping and reloading OSX might be my best bet.
I've archived my entourage files and moved them to an external hard drive, backed all my docs, music and pictures up to CD, and moved an alias of Firefox to my external hard drive, so I think I'm ready to go.
BUT
When I put the start up disk into the slot and click on install OSX, the gremlins tell me that I can't do it because I don't have Classic 9 installed.
Arrgh!
As to specs: I have a Mac Mini, and it's running a Power PC processor. That's about all I know.
I would appreciate any thoughts, suggestions, or advice - just keep in mind that I fully admit to being the village idiot - my understanding of technology both beginning and ending with the modern cheese grater - so please use tiny, English words.
Thanks so, so much!
Comments
A few months ago, while writing a screenplay in Final Draft.
That explains the post.
I was deleting a bunch of old files, hoping this would speed things up and I found that my screenplay - the one that kept popping up in my spam - had been redated to December 1, 1969.
Your PRAM battery might be dead or it might be that your PRAM just needs reset by holding command-alt-P-R at startup. If it doesn't happen again, it could have just been a glitch or the battery is just dying. PRAM batteries are cheap to replace and usually last about 5 years so if your computer is older than that, it may be suspect.
I installed monolingual and removed a bunch of old languages; and I installed xslimmer and stripped the Intel code from my ... whatever it is - my computer brain.
Stripping the Intel binaries wouldn't make the programs faster as they don't get executed but freeing up space might have improved your virtual memory. You shouldn't run your machine lower than about 1-2GB of free hard drive space.
Using less than 1GB of Ram is not recommended either. You can find out how much you have by checking the apple menu and about this Mac option.
So I'm thinking wiping and reloading OSX might be my best bet.
Try repairing your permissions using Disk Utility in /Applications/Utilities. Select the drive in the window and there's a button to repair permissions - you don't need to verify first as the repair does that anyway.
Then use cocktail to clean all your caches:
http://www.maintain.se/cocktail/index.php
I think it's in the files tab there should be a caches sub tab. In the options also choose kernel caches. You don't need to clean browser caches but font caches would be ok. Hit clean. Then reboot right after. This will take longer to reboot as it has to rebuild the caches.
When I put the start up disk into the slot and click on install OSX, the gremlins tell me that I can't do it because I don't have Classic 9 installed.
I think you have Portuguese gremlins because that makes no sense. Not that the Portuguese are non-sensical of course, I'd hate to stereotype them. I don't think you need to reinstall but in order to do so, try booting from the CD directly by holding the c-key down after restarting. If that doesn't work, hold down the alt-key and see if the CD shows up as an option.
If you do want to reinstall, do an archive installation so that it only replaces your system files, your data should remain intact.
Unfortunately, I have a new problem, and it's just as bizarre...
My husband bought me a new memory for Christmas - I guess he thought it would help me to remember to clean the house. It didn't, BUT it was like a vitamin B shot for McWilson (my mini) - rather than drag his sorry circuitry through my files, he was sprinting all over the place. It was wonderful.
Then I began reloading my music and everything that was right in the world went terribly wrong --
I had forgotten that a particular CD (Coldplay - Parachutes) tends to hang up in the little slot thing. McWilson stopped on a dime and I couldn't get him to move for love or money - I had the colored whirly thing for like, fifteen minutes - so I shut him down.
And that was the end of McWilson. When I try to boot up, I get the gray screen with the gray whirly thing and nothing else. My husband was successful in getting Coldplay out of the slot thing, and we tried putting the OS in, but to no avail.
How odd that a CD could screw things up so badly. My husband thinks the hard drive crashed, but it seems too much of a coincidence to me - everything was super until I tried to import that CD.
I'm ordering a new imac this week, but if my mini is salvageable, I would like to give it to a friend of mine. Any suggestions? Has anyone ever heard of such a thing?
Oh, and to answer the other question, I'm running Tiger.
And one more thing -- my husband is an electrician who specializes in Instrumentation and Electronics - so yeah, he was grounded, everything is firmly seated, and so forth. He even took the new memory out and put the old one back in, but it didn't work.
Thanks for any insight anyone can offer...
D
If so, and if I am remembering correctly, you can hold down the C key during start up to force your mac to boot off of the DVD or CD. Keep holding the C key until you hear beeps. And then be patient. It may take awhile to fix everything.
Did you have a backup drive? If you used SuperDuper you can boot from that disk, providing you made a clone of your hard drive. And at the very worst you won't have lost too much if you have a current backup.
Good luck.
I don't have a mac keyboard, though - what button would I hold down on a regular keyboard?
I don't know what a backup drive is (insert embarrassed face here). I have an external hard drive and all my work is backed up onto that, but I don't know if my hard drive stuff is on that - and even if it were, how would I get to it if I can't get the computer to boot up?
Sorry, I'm an idiot.
You said you can insert the OSX install disk right?
If so, and if I am remembering correctly, you can hold down the C key during start up to force your mac to boot off of the DVD or CD. Keep holding the C key until you hear beeps. And then be patient. It may take awhile to fix everything.
Did you have a backup drive? If you used SuperDuper you can boot from that disk, providing you made a clone of your hard drive. And at the very worst you won't have lost too much if you have a current backup.
Good luck.
Yes, I can insert the OSX, but nothing happens.
I don't have a mac keyboard, though - what button would I hold down on a regular keyboard?
I don't know what a backup drive is (insert embarrassed face here). I have an external hard drive and all my work is backed up onto that, but I don't know if my hard drive stuff is on that - and even if it were, how would I get to it if I can't get the computer to boot up?
Sorry, I'm an idiot.
the C key as in the letter "c"
I just noticed that the key command is for Intel based macs and I don't know if it will work for PPC macs.
the C key as in the letter "c"
I just noticed that the key command is for Intel based macs and I don't know if it will work for PPC macs.
still no beeps...
How did you put your work on the external hard drive? Did yo use a program or just copied the files/folders over manually (like from Finder)?
Did your mini make any noises when it died, like clicking or anything?
and what do i do when and if it beeps at me?
i just moved tem over in finder.
still no beeps...
OK, you have safeguarded your work, but not your system files. At least you won't be losing any of your work if nothing works.
Did your mini make any noises when it died, like clicking or anything?
If all of the above is true, and you held it down for at least a couple of minutes, then that doesn't seem to work for PPC macs.
I tried searching the Apple site for startup key combinations for PPC and couldn't find anything.
when you say it may take a while, how long do you mean -- a while like a couple of minutes, or a while like, sometime before i start to collect social security?
and what do i do when and if it beeps at me?
No it should happen pretty quickly, the beeps that is. If you haven't hear the beeps after a minute or two, then it isn't going to work. If you do hear the beeps then stop pressing the "C" key and you should see an OSX startup screen. You should see a menu bar at the top and one of the choices should be utilities. Let me know if you see this.
more like a groaning, whirring, i-don't-like-this-cd sort of noise.
The noise only happened when you used the CD drive? No noises prior to that?
You have the OSX disk in the drive and you held down the "C" key while starting it up and you heard no beeps?
If all of the above is true, and you held it down for at least a couple of minutes, then that doesn't seem to work for PPC macs.
I tried searching the Apple site for startup key combinations for PPC and couldn't find anything.
No, there were no other noises at the time. McWilson was running along beautifully - really fast, no worries, no noises. Then I put the CD in. It started to import the first song, then locked up all of my other applications and the import froze. It started making the whirring, groaning noise and I couldn't get the CD out or even shut down, so I turned it off manually, and that was the last thing I've seen of McWilson.
Do you think it crashed?
No it should happen pretty quickly, the beeps that is. If you haven't hear the beeps after a minute or two, then it isn't going to work. If you do hear the beeps then stop pressing the "C" key and you should see an OSX startup screen. You should see a menu bar at the top and one of the choices should be utilities. Let me know if you see this.
The noise only happened when you used the CD drive? No noises prior to that?
nope - tried it a second time to make sure, and still nothing - just the gray apple and whirly thing.
you see a whirly thing? kind of like the spokes of a wheel lighting up one after the other going around in a circle?
If you see that, try leaving it running without doing anything. Just let it be for awhile, like 30 minutes and see if it will start up. Sometimes if you terminate in the middle of an operation OSX needs to repair files before it can restart. And leave the OSX disk in the CD drive.
Just let it run for 30 minutes. If it never progresses beyond the "whirly" thing then you have problems beyond my humble abilities.
You could try posting this in the Genius Bar section of AppleInsider and on Macfixit
you see a whirly thing? kind of like the spokes of a wheel lighting up one after the other going around in a circle?
If you see that, try leaving it running without doing anything. Just let it be for awhile, like 30 minutes and see if it will start up. Sometimes if you terminate in the middle of an operation OSX needs to repair files before it can restart. And leave the OSX disk in the CD drive.
Just let it run for 30 minutes. If it never progresses beyond the "whirly" thing then you have problems beyond my humble abilities.
You could try posting this in the Genius Bar section of AppleInsider and on Macfixit