Last night we were apparently hit by a power surge. Our power supply backup apparently stopped it from damaging the computer because the computer worked fine--until we tried to replace the batteries in the power supply backup. Now, when we turn on the computer, it goes "boing", we get a white screen, and nothing happens. Suggestions, please.
Mac turns on but OS won't load
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Cory Cooper
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Hello and welcome.
Sorry to hear of that situation.
-Which model Mac?
-What version of OS X?
-Was the computer plugged in and powered on?
We'll try to diagnose possible causes with the additional information.
C
Sorry to hear of that situation.
-Which model Mac?
-What version of OS X?
-Was the computer plugged in and powered on?
We'll try to diagnose possible causes with the additional information.
C
Can't start up the machine to see what the exact model is but it a 3-year old iMac 27" screen, running 10.9.5. The machine responds when started up by going "boing" and a white screen and goes no further. It was plugged in and asleep when the power surge occurred during the night. It did wake up the next morning with no difficulty.
Cory Cooper
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Thanks for the additional info.
You may be able to either boot to the recovery partition or a Mac OS X install disc if you have one.
Try holding the Option key down and powering the iMac on. It should boot to the Startup Manager screen and you can choose the Recovery partition. If it is not present, you can do the same but hold Command and R keys down to boot into the Recovery partition. If either is successful, we will be able to run Disk Utility to check and possibly repair the HD so that it will startup normally.
Hopefully you have a current Time Machine or other backup of your data?
C
You may be able to either boot to the recovery partition or a Mac OS X install disc if you have one.
Try holding the Option key down and powering the iMac on. It should boot to the Startup Manager screen and you can choose the Recovery partition. If it is not present, you can do the same but hold Command and R keys down to boot into the Recovery partition. If either is successful, we will be able to run Disk Utility to check and possibly repair the HD so that it will startup normally.
Hopefully you have a current Time Machine or other backup of your data?
C
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Glad you got the issue resolved, but it would be good to use Disk Utility to "check out" the internal drive on the machine. Follow Cory's advice above to "get to" the Recovery Partition on your drive. Better still, having access to a more robust disk maintenance/repair program like Disk Warrior or TechTool Pro would be ideal.
And, what Cory says about backups is absolutely correct!
And, what Cory says about backups is absolutely correct!
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Time Machine backups are great for recovering individual files. But, it is not useful if you have a "fatal crash" of your system (from a software perspective), and need to get back to business. That is where a backup/clone program is superior. I use SuperDuper! for that purpose (Carbon Copy Cloner is another excellent choice), and it makes a bootable backup/clone of my primary drive at that moment in time. The paid version of SuperDuper! has a similar feature to Time Machine, where it can do scheduled backups. (It also runs faster than the "free" version). For my processing needs, I don't need that. I just stick with my weekly disk maintenance/repairs/backup processing. I also keep my machines "lean and clean" at all times, and get rid of stuff when I no longer need it.
I can tell you that on 3 occasions, having such backups "saved my bacon", per se.
If you are only going to rely on Time Machine, I strongly suggest you follow through with some kind of cleanup/disk maintenance/repair processing. Two free tools you can use for that are 1) Disk Utility, and 2) Onyx. You might also want to consider investing in a more robust disk maintenance/repair program like Disk Warrior or TechTool Pro.
When I do my weekly backups, here are the steps I go through for both of my Macs:
1. Permanently get rid of deleted EMails in Outlook.
2. Use the excellent freeware program Oynx to perform some disk maintenance, and a number of cleanup, tasks.
3. Use TechTool Pro to perform disk maintenance (and repairs, if necessary).
4. Use SuperDuper! to make two backups to two separate external drives.
I guess the ideal, "free" way of doing the backups is 1) use the free version of SuperDuper! to do a backup/clone of your system (that will be a manual process, and done only as often as you decide to do it. Myself, I do it once a week), and 2) continue to use Time Machine to make more frequent "incremental" backups. If you then ever need to do a full recovery, you could first boot from the most recent SuperDuper! backup, and then recover whatever individual files that were backed up by Time Machine since that last SuperDuper! backup.
I can tell you that on 3 occasions, having such backups "saved my bacon", per se.
If you are only going to rely on Time Machine, I strongly suggest you follow through with some kind of cleanup/disk maintenance/repair processing. Two free tools you can use for that are 1) Disk Utility, and 2) Onyx. You might also want to consider investing in a more robust disk maintenance/repair program like Disk Warrior or TechTool Pro.
When I do my weekly backups, here are the steps I go through for both of my Macs:
1. Permanently get rid of deleted EMails in Outlook.
2. Use the excellent freeware program Oynx to perform some disk maintenance, and a number of cleanup, tasks.
3. Use TechTool Pro to perform disk maintenance (and repairs, if necessary).
4. Use SuperDuper! to make two backups to two separate external drives.
I guess the ideal, "free" way of doing the backups is 1) use the free version of SuperDuper! to do a backup/clone of your system (that will be a manual process, and done only as often as you decide to do it. Myself, I do it once a week), and 2) continue to use Time Machine to make more frequent "incremental" backups. If you then ever need to do a full recovery, you could first boot from the most recent SuperDuper! backup, and then recover whatever individual files that were backed up by Time Machine since that last SuperDuper! backup.