Tiger Upgrade Killed My Mini??

I have a 3-month old Mac Mini running Tiger. Kept getting "popups" from QuickUpdate telling me I could update "garage band" and who knows what else. In particular, there was an upgrade of Mac OS for Intel that maybe I should have looked into first. There is also a DVD in the slot with Adobe Photoshop. I hit "upgrade", twenty minutes later get "Installation Successful" please restart.

She chimes happily. A partially eaten Apple shows up in grey, and then an infinite amount of time later the little "sun" is still circling around. I tried reboot, nope. I tried starting up with Option, nope; with C; nope; with Option+Command+Shift+Delete; nope. So I zapped the pram -- unplugged everything from the back, held the power button on and inserted power. Waited for a few seconds and powered up. Same thing as before, except now the fan is frighteningly loud.

I'm thinking of dismantling the Mini to get the DVD out somehow and trying with an OS Boot disk in place. Any other suggestions?

Regards, John
p.s. Oh, that reminds me. Always do a back-up before you install software from Apple. I know I wish I did... :-(

Sounds like you probably got some system file corruption. I would suggest putting in your restore CD and doing an archive and install this will install a clean copy of the system files retaining your user profile and data and apps.

How to I get the existing CD out? I've been looking for somewhere to jam a paperclip or something.

Thanks, John

Boot the Mini up holding down the LEFT mouse button. As soon as you hear the Chime, hold down the left button and keep it down. The DVD should pop out. It might take a few so don't give up too soon.

I never have problems with OSX updates. I have that same mini.

Have you tried powering off the machine and then powering it back on whilst holding the mouse button down.

Sounds good, what's a left mouse button? My mouse is a "ProMouse" M5769 that originally came with a cube. It has no buttons.

WantMyMiniBack said:

Sounds good, what's a left mouse button? My mouse is a "ProMouse" M5769 that originally came with a cube. It has no buttons.

Click to expand...

hold the mouse button.

Yeh!! The mouse was hooked into the keyboard which was hooked into the Cinema Display. I plugged keyboard and mouse directly into back of mini. Held the mouse in my hand squeezing top and bottom together. CD popped right out

Thanks!

I forgot to mention that the eject did not work multiple times with the mouse plugged in via the Cinema Display. It was only once the mouse was in the back of mini directly that I had any luck. Launched disk repair - it found an illegal file name? This could have been created by the upgrade or by the multiple times I powered off the mac. Either way, even with the repair the Mac will no longer boot off that drive so I have little choice but to do a "fresh" install of the old 1.4.4

If you have not already started the install, when the installer boots up, check options and do an Upgrade and Install. It will install leaving all your files and settings. Hope I caught you in time.

The only reason the mouse would not work when plugged into the Cinima display is drivers are loaded in OSX for the hub in the display, when you first power on if I remember right on my Mac, it might not work. Glad you figured that out. I did not know you were plugged into the Hub of a that display or would have warned you.

Yup, I did a upgrade and install. All files intact, no problem. Any thoughts on how to turn the fan off now? Feels like the mini is going to take off. i've seen discussion along lines of zapping the pram, but I think it was zapping the pram that caused the fan to go nuts.