Hello,
I have a mid-2007 mac mini and recently I upgraded the RAM to 2 GB from 1 GB (two flashes of 1GB each). When I open the mac mini, a flashing question mark appears.
I' ve read the support thread from apple, but nothing helps. The only progress that happend is that when I pressed the Option key, the mouse appeared on screen, but nothing else.
Mac mini
That error indicates that a startup disk can't be found.
Did it start right after your replaced the memory?
If you have Lion installed (your Mini can go to Lion), boot into the recovery partition
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718and go to Disk Utility and see what is listed and try to repair the startup disk. If not Lion you will have to boot with an install DVD and go to Disk Utility.
Could you have disconnected the HD during memory replacement?
That error indicates that a startup disk can't be found.
Did it start right after your replaced the memory?
If you have Lion installed (your Mini can go to Lion), boot into the recovery partition
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718and go to Disk Utility and see what is listed and try to repair the startup disk. If not Lion you will have to boot with an install DVD and go to Disk Utility.
Could you have disconnected the HD during memory replacement?
It didn't start right after the replacement. The first time I tried to open it, the question mark appeared.
I have tiger installed by default on the mac mini and I don't own the installation dvd because it was already made by a person who didn't want the mac mini and gave it to me.
I cannot use my dvd driver because is not working anyways (before the replacement). What I wanted to do after the installation was to go to 10.6 and then to 10.7 mac os. That's why the upgraded ram memory.
I guess, from what you said, that the most likely is to have done something to the hd. I followed the instructions by the book, although. How can I figure out if there's something wrong with my hd (it's the one that mac mini had by default) ?
If you have another Mac, you can connect the two via firewire and start the problem Mini in Target Disk mode. That way you can access the drives on the Mini from the other computer
How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk moder
Also you can make an appointment at the Genius Bar of an Apple store. It is free.
Luckily, a friend of mine owns a macbook, so I' ll try what you suggested. Thank you!
It seems that my HD wasn't put in the right place from the begining. Now, it works as it did before.
My new problem is that it doesn't recognize one of the two memory cards I' ve put. Should I search elsewhere for further information?
Are the memoru stick iddential?
Try swaping them to see if it the stick or the slot on the Mini
In the old days you could use mixed ram (not recommended ) But the new Macs are very particular, it is recommended that you use matched set of ram. I recommend------
After many times I opened and closed my mac mini, I finally did it and it works fine.
The memory card should've been pushed harder. I know it sounds rediculous, but they don't make a noise when they're on place, so I couldn't have known.
As for the HD, I guess that it must have been disconnected from the very beginning. Macs are tricky, I didn't even touch it when I opened it!
Thank you for your answers.
(How do I change the "this helped me" to "this solved my question" ?)
Great work, thanks for the report! 🙂
You cannot change an award, all you can do now is mark another post as solved.
Flashing question mark during start up
