06-28-2007, 06:22 PM

Hi all

Sorry if this is in wrong place but I'm not sure if it's a hardware or software issue yet!

Just wondering if anyone had come across it and can help...

I accidently pulled the power cable out of my Mac mini and when I restarted it got stuck on 'Login Window starting' for about 10 mins (and does every time now). Eventually the login window popped up asking for a password (never did before) and when I got in there was lots of stuff wrong such as all photos from iphoto had gone, internet not working (it didn't even appear to be seeing the modem in netwrok status) and when I tried to change settings such as energy saving they changed straight back!

I've tried everything I can think of:
- Hardware test - all passed
- Disk first aid - Error could not fix disk (said 'invalid key length')
- Reinstall OSX - Error, could not install
- Starting from/installing Norton - was not having any of it!
- Starting as single user and doing fsck test - check failed (said 'invalid key length')

Any help would be much appreciated

06-28-2007, 06:40 PM

Originally Posted by polkadot

Hi all

Sorry if this is in wrong place but I'm not sure if it's a hardware or software issue yet!

Just wondering if anyone had come across it and can help...

I accidently pulled the power cable out of my Mac mini and when I restarted it got stuck on 'Login Window starting' for about 10 mins (and does every time now). Eventually the login window popped up asking for a password (never did before) and when I got in there was lots of stuff wrong such as all photos from iphoto had gone, internet not working (it didn't even appear to be seeing the modem in netwrok status) and when I tried to change settings such as energy saving they changed straight back!

I've tried everything I can think of:
- Hardware test - all passed
- Disk first aid - Error could not fix disk (said 'invalid key length')
- Reinstall OSX - Error, could not install
- Starting from/installing Norton - was not having any of it!
- Starting as single user and doing fsck test - check failed (said 'invalid key length')

Any help would be much appreciated

Have you tried the maintenance/repair options in Onyx? Happen to own a copy of Disk Warrior? Sounds like a corrupted user account / home directory to me.