Mac mini

[mebwm]

Five year old Mac Mini keeps crashing with the message - see attached. The message says "You need to restart your computer. Hold down the power button for several seconds or press the restart button." This message is on a black background with the image of a start button in grey. and in three additional languages. I have done the first aid in Utilities Folder. Also started up from original Start-up disk and done repairs as suggested in Utilities Folder.  What can I do next?
[IMG_7885 copy.JPG]

[Dan Millar]

Does the mini show this immediately on startup, or after you've already booted up? Since the mini starts up from the install CD, I would suggest you have a problem with your system software or user account, and if that's not the problem you may have a hardware issue, e.g. overheating, RAM failure, HD failure, etc. Here's a couple things you can try to narrow down the issue to either software or hardware.

• Try starting the mini in "Safe Mode". i.e. hold down the shift key before and during startup from the hard drive - you can release the shift key after you see the grey screen with the clock spinning. This only loads Apple's core OS, and no third-party software. If the mini seems okay and does not present the "black screen of death(BSOD)", then it is some third-party software you have added recently. You will have to uninstall whatever it is before proceeding.


• Try logging into the machine with a different user account. If you don't have a second account - create one in the Accounts panel in the System Preferences. Make it an administrator account and log out of your current account (under the apple menu, last item "log out username, and log in as the new user. If the Mac does not "BSOD" with the new account, then it is something specific to your user account. The only way to get around this problem is to either find the thing that is specific to that account and remove it - but this is a long and tedious process and could be a lot of different things - a font, a print driver, camera software, etc. The other solution is to create a new account and "migrate" your important data, like mail, photos, music, movies, etc - anything stored in your current account that is just data is safe to keep.

Give us a bit more history/detail and perhaps we can narrow it down a bit further.

Happy Mac'ing!

iDan

[mebwm]

Thanks for your suggestions. I think I have solved the problem. I managed to get it to start up and I burnt all the files as a back-up. Then I erased the HD and did an install of Mac Leopard. It took hours but it seems to be working well.

This is a computer that my husband, 83, uses and he uses it mainly for email and Solitaire but often when I check his computer every application, as well as System Preferences, on the computer will be open and he will have managed to do all sorts of weird things. For example he will complain that Mail won't work and I will see that thing struggling to send an attachment - twice he was trying to send his whole desktop. I think he had selected all the icons on the desktop and clicked on attach. Not sure because I don't want to try and duplicate that feat.

Luckily it is a Mac and I can usually fix things.

Is there any way that I can hide the System preferences from the dock and from the Apple drop down menu?

Thanks

[Dan Millar]

Thats good news, and I sympathize with your situation. I hate to suggest it, but perhaps your husband should not be using a normal user account, but rather a Managed account, with Parental Controls, or, at least, a normal account without administrator privileges.

Check out the various options in the Accounts Pane of System Preferences for a new user with the account type set to "Managed with Parental Controls". You can limit which programs are accessible, and where files can be saved/retrieved from, i.e. not all over the desktop.

As to System Preferences, just click-and-drag the icon out of the dock and it will "poof" - disappear. Another option is to have all the system preferences "locked", so that only a person with an "Administrator" account and password can unlock them. You do this in the Security preference pane under the "General" tab.

Happy Mac'ing!

Dan

[ben schmidt]

Five year old Mac Mini keeps crashing with the message - see attached. The message says "You need to restart your computer. Hold down the power button for several seconds or press the restart button." This message is on a black background with the image of a start button in grey. and in three additional languages. I have done the first aid in Utilities Folder. Also started up from original Start-up disk and done repairs as suggested in Utilities Folder.  What can I do next?
[IMG_7885 copy.JPG]http://

The multilingual message on a black background is what Unix folks call a Kernel Panic. It means that a very serious problem has occurred with the core files that boot the computer. So serious that it's all the computer can do to put up this single message. A kernel panic is quite rare, although it can be caused by 3rd-party peripherals that plaace .kext in /System/Library/Extensions.  It also can be caused by a hardware problem.

Regardless, since the Mac Mini is used for basic tasks, and you were able to back up the files on it, a fresh install of OS X is the right thing to do. I think that's what you did. If you do not get any more Kernel Panics, the hardware is fine.

...ben