Urgent! Mac computer won't boot up. (1 Viewer)

I have a problem. My Mac Mini at work won't boot up today. It chimes and starts the process but then goes to a blue screen and won't progress any further. This is the third time it has happened - every time on a Monday morning. Initially it started all right and I managed to open Firefox. However, when I tried to open Mail it ground to a halt and wouldn't go any further.

I have tried the Apple suggestions of zapping the P ram by holding down 'Command - Alt - P - R' on start up but this hasn't helped. In the past I have found that the only solution is to reinstall the operating software but this takes several days to get everything working properly. In the meantime there are some urgent jobs locked away in the computer which I need to acess. Do any of you Mac geniuses have any alternative suggestions which might work?

i am posting this from my extremely flaky old G4 which doesn't have any of the required applications installed.

Ron

Can you still boot in safe mode? To do that you need to press the shift key after pressing the power key and hearing the typical start up noise, keeping it pressed until you get a grey screen. That may allow you to do what you need to do before taking further action, such as reinstalling the OS. I think typically this screen is caused by some kind of mess in various registries (hence the recommendation to zap the P-ram), so using disk utility to verify/repair permissions might be something to try.

Do you keep a time machine back-up? That should make reinstalling everything much less painful.

If you Google `Mac blue screen' you'll get various other things to try.

My sympathies,

Andrea

Thanks Andrea. I had tried all the above suggestions but they didn't work. I just keep a back up of all my work files but not a full time machine back up (I would need a bigger drive for that.)

I decided to bite the bullet and have reinstalled the operating system. I am now going through the tedious business of downloading and installing all the software updates and finding all the bits and pieces which will allow the printers and everything else to function as before. I usually keep finding broken things for a couple of weeks afterwards.

This is the third time in two months that it has happened so I need to find a more permanent solution.

Ron

It certainly isn't normal to have this happen with such frequency. There's got to be something out of kilter with your machine. I'm not enough of an Apple expert to tell you how to do this, but next time this happens I think I'd bite the bullet and spend however long it takes on the phone with Apple support. (Assuming that taking your machine in to a centre isn't viable.)

There have to be log files that would tell an expert why your machine keeps falling over, and from there they should be able to fix it.

Andrea