Mini Mac, Big Trouble: Can't get past gray screen.
Someone in the OSX forum was kind enough to advise me to bring my problem here. I should state for the record that I'm a computer idiot, so please pardon my ignorance.
I have a Mac Mini running with a PPS based processor with Tiger OS, and I do not have a Mac keyboard.
My husband, who is an electrician, upgraded my memory a few days ago and everything was going great.
A few days later, while trying to import some music from a CD, my computer locked up and started making a whirring, groaning sort of noise. All my other applications froze also. I couldn't even shut down.
I had forgotten that when I tried to import this CD in the past, I had similar issues - it locked up and wouldn't import the CD - which is why I suspect that this is the problem this time, also.
I shut down manually, and now my mini will not restart. I get the gray apple screen with the gray whirly thing, but nothing beyond that.
My husband got the CD out of the slot thing and we tried to reboot with the OS, but still got the same gray screen.
The person in the other forum said to try restarting while holding down the "c" key, and waiting for some beeps - did that, but to no avail. I didn't get any beeps and nothing changed.
If anyone can offer some suggestions, I would really appreciate it. Is it likely that the hard drive crashed? It seems like a rather big coincidence, considering that this same CD gave me problems the last time.
Thanks for any help you can offer!
I have a Mac Mini running with a PPS based processor with Tiger OS, and I do not have a Mac keyboard.
My husband, who is an electrician, upgraded my memory a few days ago and everything was going great.
A few days later, while trying to import some music from a CD, my computer locked up and started making a whirring, groaning sort of noise. All my other applications froze also. I couldn't even shut down.
I had forgotten that when I tried to import this CD in the past, I had similar issues - it locked up and wouldn't import the CD - which is why I suspect that this is the problem this time, also.
I shut down manually, and now my mini will not restart. I get the gray apple screen with the gray whirly thing, but nothing beyond that.
My husband got the CD out of the slot thing and we tried to reboot with the OS, but still got the same gray screen.
The person in the other forum said to try restarting while holding down the "c" key, and waiting for some beeps - did that, but to no avail. I didn't get any beeps and nothing changed.
If anyone can offer some suggestions, I would really appreciate it. Is it likely that the hard drive crashed? It seems like a rather big coincidence, considering that this same CD gave me problems the last time.
Thanks for any help you can offer!
Comments
The person in the other forum said to try restarting while holding down the "c" key, and waiting for some beeps - did that, but to no avail. I didn't get any beeps and nothing changed.
If anyone can offer some suggestions, I would really appreciate it. Is it likely that the hard drive crashed? It seems like a rather big coincidence, considering that this same CD gave me problems the last time.
Thanks for any help you can offer!
If the C key didn't work it could be that the optical (CD) drive is faulty.
Do you have access to another mac? There is a way to boot from the CD drive in another mac. I went through this process myself recently...
Wait a couple mins and see what the last couple lines say. If its saying I/O or checking disk over and over sounds like a bad HDD.
If starts to load the OS (gets past the checking disk) then you may just need to load the OS again.