2 Mac Mini's, Same Problems!
My Mini devoted an issue where it went into sleep mode (Eco mode?) and wouldn't wake up.
After re-booting by removing power cord I turned off the settings. My intentions were primarily to get the iTunes Directory copied as my music is stored on an external HD.
However after a few minutes I get the Rainbow Wheel of death and everything is locked up.
I was going to replace the Mini with my "emergency" Mini which has been sitting in its box for the past 3 years waiting to spring into action! All that I did with this is set it up and connect to network before going back into its box.
This Mini was the last version to feature the internal disc drive.
Upon starting the new Mini I encountered the same issues???
Is this purely a coincidence or am I missing something?
Any help would be appreciated.
After re-booting by removing power cord I turned off the settings. My intentions were primarily to get the iTunes Directory copied as my music is stored on an external HD.
However after a few minutes I get the Rainbow Wheel of death and everything is locked up.
I was going to replace the Mini with my "emergency" Mini which has been sitting in its box for the past 3 years waiting to spring into action! All that I did with this is set it up and connect to network before going back into its box.
This Mini was the last version to feature the internal disc drive.
Upon starting the new Mini I encountered the same issues???
Is this purely a coincidence or am I missing something?
Any help would be appreciated.
Comments
The rainbow wheel on copying from the external could mean the external drive has a problem. If this drive is plugged in when the sleep issue happens, perhaps it's having an effect here too.
Many thanks for your reply. Yes I use a wireless keyboard and mouse and I have "cured" the sleep problem by turning it off.
On the new Mini I have taken out all the USB peripherals but still getting the Rainbow wheel.
I'm totally lost with this!
What did you do just before the rainbow wheel appeared? If it hangs when copying files, the hard drive might be failing.
On both Mini's it happens when I try to do more than one thing, for example copy a file and open Safari.
It just seems so strange that the same problems have occurred with both Mini's, especially the newer on as that has been virtually unused and has next to nothing on the hard disc
Sometimes you wind up with a lemon.It happened to me on 2 MBP.Both no good.
Do you mean copying from the internal drive or from the same external drive? If it's both their internal drives and the new one has been sitting unused for a while, there is a possibility that the hard drive got damaged in that one. Hard drives aren't supposed to sit idle for long periods as the mechanisms can fail but also hard drives are most likely to fail in their first few months of use and right at the end of their life cycle. That's one of the problems with mechanical drives. SSDs don't have this problem. Listen close to the machine when it hangs and see if you can hear the drive making any clicking noises or noises where it's trying to spin and then stops and repeats.
I was trying to copy the iTunes directory which is on the internal HD over to the external HD.
The plan was then to then copy the directory to the newer Mini.
The furthest I got was to start the copying of the music folder and then the rainbow wheel of death started.
I then decided to break out the newer Mini and see if I could use my 2TB time Capsule instead but never got that far before the rainbow wheel appeared on that.
Looking like I will have to buy a new Mini plus external drive :rolleyes:
You'd just need a new drive, not a new mini.
Check if the external is damaged by listening to the noise the external and internal on the old mini make when copying. Do the same for the new mini.
You can also transfer directly from one mini to another over ethernet or wifi. Wifi is slower but if the old mini has 802.11n, a direct connection will go pretty fast. If you have an ethernet cable somewhere e.g in your router box, you'd just hook them together, turn file sharing on one of the and use the other to connect to it. Then just drag the iTunes folder from it.
Run the Mini's (do some stuff with them) withOUT the external drive connected. Do they exhibit the bad behavior in that configuration?
If they misbehave withOUT the external drive connected, then you can infer that the external drive is not the problem.
If they run fine without the external drive, and then misbehave again when you connect the external drive (or shortly after you try to use the external drive), it's likely that the external drive has some failings that is causing it to hang the computer.
It would be a hugely improbable coincidence that both of the Mini's are bad (but not impossible). Odds are the problem is with the external drive, not the Mini's.
I started up the new Mini with no peripherals attached except for the wireless mouse and keyboard (plus monitor of course).
Could it be one of them causing the issues?
Thanks guys.
I started up the new Mini with no peripherals attached except for the wireless mouse and keyboard (plus monitor of course).
...and how did it run? Did it have problems?
Going to buy a wired keyboard and mouse to see if that fixes things.