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Level 1

0 points

Crash!

I;ve got a problem with my old Mac Mini (10.2 machine, 10.4.11 OSX).

Today I tried to install the polish language plugin on my OS and in the middle of 5-th package, the installator stopped for an hour. I was unable to shut it down or manually restart the computer, so I did it by pushing the power button on the Mac.

After this, when I turned my coputer back on, the startup desktop showed up but there was no upper command menu and from the bottom menu I could pick up and click on every single icon, but none of them was working.

Now I can do nothing, even I can't shut down the computer normally.

My question is: is there anything that I can do?

If no, how can I format my disk and reinstall the OS? I must add that I put the OS installation disc into the machine but nothing happened and what's more I can't take it back now :/.

Please help!
Best regards

Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Jan 5, 2014 6:49 AM

19 replies

Jan 6, 2014 1:11 PM in response to piszu

Hold down the power button after the chime.

piszu Author

Level 1

0 points

Jan 13, 2014 4:42 PM in response to piszu

Hi guys. Still fighitng with the MacMini.

The PMU reset went well but it didn't change anything. I think I am going to give up and this week I will bring it to the service for a diagnosis...

BDAqua

Level 10

239,339 points

Jan 13, 2014 7:09 PM in response to piszu

OK, good luck, kep ust posted please. 🙂

rccharles

Level 6

12,957 points

Jan 14, 2014 11:41 AM in response to piszu

I assume this is a PPC mac mine...

The startup manager will list all of your bootable partitions then give you a choice of which to boot. Hold down the option key then power on. Continue holding down the option key until you see the startup manager. This brings up the startup manager. Click on your hd. Click on right arrow key.

Sometimes if volumes don't appear in Startup Manager (what you get when you hold down the Option key at startup), you need to reset the Mac's PRAM, NVRAM, and Open Firmware. Shut down the Mac, then power it up, and before the screen lights up, quickly hold down the Command, Option, P, and R keys, until the Mac has chimed twice more after the powerup chime.

Then, before the screen lights up, hold down Command-Option-O-F until the Open Firmware screen appears. Then enter these lines, pressing Return after each one:

reset-nvram

set-defaults

reset-all

"The reset-all command should restart your Mac. If so, you have successfully reset the Open Firmware settings."

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1812?viewlocale=en_US

Should the fail...

Try taking the battery out for 10 minutes. Put battery back in. Cross fingers. Power the machine back on.

How to eject a cd from the internal cd drive:

eject cd

List of devices:

devalias

List of variables:

printenv

More than you ever wanted to know about open firmware

http://www.firmworks.com/QuickRef.html

Crash!