Failure to boot

[caslon]

hi everybody - i need to pick your brains. our macmini (1.66ghz intel duo) has fallen over after the last quicktime software update. it won't start up, getting part of the way thro booting up before switching off. an archive and install is what i'd normally do, but when we boot up from the system disks it won't even see the the hard disk as a place to install. it WILL see the hard disk in disk utility when running from the same system disk.

the hd is, of course, full of important info i don't want to erase.

any help you could give would be very much appreciated.

 

[Walrus666]

hi everybody - i need to pick your brains. our macmini (1.66ghz intel duo) has fallen over after the last quicktime software update. it won't start up, getting part of the way thro booting up before switching off. an archive and install is what i'd normally do, but when we boot up from the system disks it won't even see the the hard disk as a place to install. it WILL see the hard disk in disk utility when running from the same system disk.

the hd is, of course, full of important info i don't want to erase.

any help you could give would be very much appreciated.

Hello,
Switching off? Do you mean that your Mac shuts down?
Seeing that Disk Utility recognizes your disk, did you repair permissions and your disk? Also, have you tried booting up with the option key pressed down and selecting your start up disk?

 

[caslon]

Hello,
Switching off? Do you mean that your Mac shuts down?
Seeing that Disk Utility recognizes your disk, did you repair permissions and your disk? Also, have you tried booting up with the option key pressed down and selecting your start up disk?

Hi! Thanks for responding. Yeah, it completely shuts down having shown me the apple logo and spinning startup graphic. It won't let me repair permissions. In the column on the left you can see the hard disk description "74gb fujitsu....", the name we have given it is greyed out. So are the verify / repair disk permissions options.

The only options available to me are the "verify disk" or "repair disk" buttons.

When i run either of these i get the message "invalid sibling link, volume check failed, underlying task reported failure on exit"

again thanks for any help you can give!

 

[caslon]

Also, i've tried the option key boot up, but the machine stills powers down!!

 

[Walrus666]

Hi! Thanks for responding. Yeah, it completely shuts down having shown me the apple logo and spinning startup graphic. It won't let me repair permissions. In the column on the left you can see the hard disk description "74gb fujitsu....", the name we have given it is greyed out. So are the verify / repair disk permissions options.

The only options available to me are the "verify disk" or "repair disk" buttons.

When i run either of these i get the message "invalid sibling link, volume check failed, underlying task reported failure on exit"

again thanks for any help you can give!

The fact that your Mac is shutting down indicates a problem that by merely reinstalling the OS more than likely will not solve. You could avoid a lot of frustration by bringing it in to get serviced. In the meantime, the first thing that I would check is the RAM. Secondly, you could try unplugging your Mac, putting it in a cool room overnight (your Mac's problem could be a result of overheating), plugging it back in and if it works, quickly back up your files. Others will probably chime in with a few more suggestions for you.

 

[caslon]

Thanks, i'll keep you posted any other suggestions are always appreciated!!!

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

See if this helps.

Read the comments too ...

 

[caslon]

Absolutely spot on. Sorted the problem and the macmini lives!!! Thankyou spawn dooley. One thing to bear in mind folks is that when you read the fsck instructions you type into terminal you will notice that in order to unmount the drive you want to fix, you are asked to type in "umount ......." this isn't a mis-spelling, do not replace with "unmount......." as nothing will happen!

Thanks again to all who contributed.

Hope i can help when needed!

 

[Walrus666]

I have heard of fsck solving booting problems before but never a booting problem where the Mac would turn off. Absolutely fantastic! Good one Spawn!

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

Absolutely spot on. Sorted the problem and the macmini lives!!! Thankyou spawn dooley. One thing to bear in mind folks is that when you read the fsck instructions you type into terminal you will notice that in order to unmount the drive you want to fix, you are asked to type in "umount ......." this isn't a mis-spelling, do not replace with "unmount......." as nothing will happen!

Thanks again to all who contributed.

Hope i can help when needed!

Excellent! Glad to see you helped your Mac Mini back up on its feet again!

Good tips BTW, about the umount command not being a typo

Hope to see you around!

@Walrus, thanks for that, muchly appreciated!