Power button icon of Death

haro!haro!
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Yeah so on start up on my dad's mac I get the gray screen with that power button icon and the message 'You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button". Since it isn't my computer I have no idea what, if any programs may have been installed on it or anything of that sort. So I am wondering a couple of things. What type of problem is typically associated with this screen and message. Is there anyway to circumvent that screen and save the files that are in the computer somehow?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    kmac1036kmac1036 Posts: 281member
    Hold T at the chime, this puts the Mac into target firewire disk mode. If this works, then something hopefully it's either the os or the logic board is about to go out. Before panic too much, see if the machine will start up holding the SHIFT key, maybe something in the kernel is trying to load. Put in the OS install disc which he currently has, Mouse down at startup to open the tray or just push it in if it's a slot drive, see if the install disc will boot the machine and if disk utility Utilities > Disk Utility to see if it sees the drive and if it can repair the permissions... if it's the OS, TechTool or Disk Warrior, or Drive Genius might be able to repair it. Otherwise, Boot holding T, connect to another mac via firewire calbe and move his stuff off, start with a clean install of OS X.
  • Reply 2 of 4
    haro!haro! Posts: 32member
    Okay I can get it into target disk mode, however whenever I try to access it from Finder on my macbook, i get the spinning beach ball and Finder is unresponsive. Am I doing something wrong?
  • Reply 3 of 4
    kareliakarelia Posts: 525member
    Nope, it's probably got a bad hard drive. Bad HD's can cause a kernel panic, and also are known to crash the diagnostic computer.
  • Reply 4 of 4
    kmac1036kmac1036 Posts: 281member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Karelia View Post


    Nope, it's probably got a bad hard drive. Bad HD's can cause a kernel panic, and also are known to crash the diagnostic computer.



    I 2nd that... if there is stuff on there, you might have a chance to scan for it beings it still mounts



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