Hi there,I've joined your forum out of frustration and exhaustion !!
I've read countless forums on how to reboot mac using a command prompt and all the start up key options , but to no avail..
My mac mini 10.5.8 just stopped working day and now only opens up with an alternately flashing folder and question mark.
Can anyone help ?
I've tried the usual startup commands, the only one that has any effect is holding the option key down - but then i get a command prompt and I don't know what to do from there to boot up my mac.(Typing mac-boot doesn't get me to a useful screen/ utilities )
Please help !
Thanks, Leonhard
mac mini 10.5.8 unresponsive !
July 15, 2015 - 7:39am
#1
mac mini 10.5.8 unresponsive !
leonhardf,
I am not sure if this will help, but
is there a battery in there somewhere that may need to be replaced?
Any Mac Mini Folks have an idea?
If leonhardf is able to boot open firmware and see the 'can't find boot drive' icon, I suspect hard drive failure.
I had similar symptoms to those of the OP and suspected this with my PPC Mini too, swapped out the hard drive - didn't fix it. Turned out to be the Airport Card causing the issue; removing that allowed the machine to boot again - though I kept the replacement drive anyway!!
That's bizarre. Like being back in the scsi voodoo days.
Replacing the battery on a G4 mini is a little involved requiring a number of pieces to be removed. You’d be best looking up the directions online. Usually the directions come with pictures which are very helpful tearing down a mini for the first time.
That said, while it is possible that there may be other causes, the most likely is drive failure.
If you have or can borrow a 10.5 or 10.4 install disk then you could boot off that and use the Disk Utilities on it.
If you have access to another Mac and a firewire cable then you can start up in Target disk mode and maybe the other Mac can see something with Disk Utilities.