Any MacOS experts?

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JHZR2

JHZR2

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This is about my Mac mini G4 (pre intel OSX, believe 10.4.x). I think I got it in 2003 or 2004...

I use it routinely for archiving. About a year ago I swapped a bigger SSD into it using an SATA to IDE converter. Boots and reads/writes super fast, which is great since it only has 1GB of RAM.

Today I booted it up and it gave me the chime, the grey screen with the apple, and an OSX splash screen where a blue bar slides across as it progresses loading the OS. It fully progressed, but then sits at a plain blue screen where I can see the mouse arrow, but nothing loads. No desktop image, no mounted drives, no bar across the top, etc.

Tried resetting NVRAM, also tried booting in safe mode, but got this:

[Linked Image]


Then I found the installation DVD, booted to it, ran hardware test, and so far it's at this:

[Linked Image]


Key being that unless my ram is bad, which is highly doubtful, things check out and the SSD/adapter is good.

So, anyone able to decipher the info above, or have any ideas?

Thanks!
 
Apple tech support is really good. Ask them on Twitter. or wherever. i think they're sitting on like 30 billion in cash reserves. They'll spend on customer service, I've noticed.
 
No response on apple support community. Believe these underlying prompts are similar to unix.
 
I am not sure if anybody even knows about this older G4 with Motorola Processor anymore.

You can try to find a RAM for it if they are replaceable, not sure if it is still available.

Otherwise, if you insist on a Mac Mini, you can get a 2011 for around $200 on Ebay.
That is your upper limit if you have to buy a ram.

You can reuse the SSD.
 
Too old and the video card can't handle a Youtube video, junk it and get a used 2011 and later MacMini and call it a day. Way too much of a time waster for nothingism on that relic.
 
Any chance in safe mode you tried hitting "RETURN" a few times;

I see a login screen so the computer can boot; the other info is a result of failed processes sending errors to "the console" ' it is unrelated to the "login:" prompt.

If you get another "login:" put in your username and password and see if it lets you get shell access


edit:I'm thinking the issue is along this line; this fix basically moves a corrupted preferences file out of the way
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/680734

I'm a linux guy and it seems like the problem is subsequent to the computer boot (e.g. starting window mananger )

Did you do anything unusual recently?
 
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It's been a long while since I worked on something that old but IIRC those old versions of OS X didn't have FS journaling in HPFS and were prone to corruption. If the hardware test passed, boot to the install media like you were going to install OS X and see if you can run Disk First Aid on the disk. Have it fix what it finds and try booting again.

Try booting in Single User Mode (Command-S) or Verbose Mode (Command-V) - cheat sheet here http://www.microbiology.columbia.edu/icb/fall2005/MacintoshOSXTigerKeys.pdf

You could also grab something like an 8GB or so USB thumbdrive and install OSX to that and boot from that to get at the data on the HD and see what's going on.

Also don't rule out a bad SSD - most likely that test doesn't read from every sector on the SSD and could still be an issue.
 
itguy mentioned the filesystem doesn't have journalling; if OP gets a shell access, he can do a filesystem check and repair from the command line.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted by itguy08
It's been a long while since I worked on something that old but IIRC those old versions of OS X didn't have FS journaling in HPFS and were prone to corruption. If the hardware test passed, boot to the install media like you were going to install OS X and see if you can run Disk First Aid on the disk. Have it fix what it finds and try booting again.

Try booting in Single User Mode (Command-S) or Verbose Mode (Command-V) - cheat sheet here http://www.microbiology.columbia.edu/icb/fall2005/MacintoshOSXTigerKeys.pdf

You could also grab something like an 8GB or so USB thumbdrive and install OSX to that and boot from that to get at the data on the HD and see what's going on.

Also don't rule out a bad SSD - most likely that test doesn't read from every sector on the SSD and could still be an issue.



This. And I'd suspect the SSD too at this juncture. I've got a number of old Mac's here, but haven't actually reloaded one in a few years. Do you still have the original HDD kicking around? Putting that in and seeing if it boots would certainly narrow it down to the SSD and/or filesystem corruption.
 
Even remotely modern software no longer runs correctly on these older pre-intel units. Time to scrap it. You can take the SSD and put into an USB case for around $15, then power it on a more current mac or put it into a NAS device if you just want storage, or even attach it to an Airport extreme.
 
The Mini G4 is one of my least favorite Macs ever made(right up there with the Performa 5000 series), but that doesn't mean it's totally useless.

What you're describing sounds like a corrupt OS install or otherwise file system corruption. I'd try first booting into Single User Mode by holding Command+S while booting. It should give you a verbose boot and then end at a command prompt(if it hangs, take a photo of where it hangs and post it here-that can be decoded to give some idea as to what's going on).

Once at the prompt, type FSCK -fy and press enter. FSCK is the file system repair utility in *nix OSs, and it's much more powerful than "Repair Disk" in OS X.

In any case, FSCK should output several lines about things it's checking. If you get a message that says "FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED", run it again(command line tip-hit the up arrow and you will get the last line typed again). Repeat until you run FSCK and do not get this message.
 
Just thinking based on member's input that the computer may not accept SSD.

I am not sure if it uses SATA or IDE on that old Mac Mini?
I know the SSD is SATA.

Not sure if this even matters.

The suggestion of putting the old HD may be the solution.
 
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Originally Posted by JMJNet
Just thinking based on member's input that the computer may not accept SSD.

I am not sure if it uses SATA or IDE on that old Mac Mini?
I know the SSD is SATA.

Not sure if this even matters.

The suggestion of putting the old HD may be the solution.


The Mini G4 uses a 2.5" laptop IDE HDD.

I've never wanted to waste the money putting an SSD in one, but I've put plenty of SSDs in PowerBook G4s-all of which use the same drive type.

There are a couple of options for putting an SSD in one.

IMO, the worst, but also probably the least expensive option, is to use a compact flash or SD card to IDE adapter. CF is preferred since the adapters are passive(CF is the one hold-out on the ATA interface) but neither is great since memory cards are designed for a very different duty cycle than a typical computer hard drive(they don't handle the continuous read-write that well, since they're basically designed to be written, read, and then erased to go around again).

The next step up is a commercial ATA SSD. Kingspec-brand drives are plentiful on Ebay, but I don't like them as they are quite slow and IMO expensive for their capacity. The OWC SSDs are $$$ and across the board in all configurations(ATA, SATA, PCIe) I haven't been satisfied with their performance.

What I usually do is use an mSATA SSD in a 44-pin 2.5" enclosure. These fit neatly into the hard drive bay and work well. I can reliably get 92mb read and write, which is respectable for an ATA/100 bus.

The only real downside is that the ATA protocol doesn't support TRIM, which gives SSDs both a longer life and helps maintain their performance over time. I occasionally do "zero free space" from Disk Utility on ATA SSDs, which is kind-of-sort-of a manual TRIM command, although it's not good for the drive to do it TOO often and also takes a while.
 
I've run disc first aid booted from the dvd. Multiple times. No dice, though repairs were made.

Booted in safe mode got same blue screeen. Need to boot in verbose mode and/or single user mode and manually do fdsk.
 
Originally Posted by JHZR2
I've run disc first aid booted from the dvd. Multiple times. No dice, though repairs were made.

Booted in safe mode got same blue screeen. Need to boot in verbose mode and/or single user mode and manually do fdsk.


It sounds like it's crashing/hanging when it tries to load the window server. Not something I haven't seen before on PPC Macs.

A plain verbose boot(command+V) probably won't tell you anything since I expect it will flash the blue screen and hang there with the text gone. Remember that a simple verbose boot is a "standard" boot aside from just telling you what's going on rather than giving you a gray Apple and a spinning wheel. Safe mode also tries to load the window server, which there again is why if that's where the issue is, it won't help.

Single user mode gives you verbose without the window server. I suspect, like I said, that you can get the window server booting if you fsck it.
 
Strangely, now it has gotten worse. No longer get to a splash screen with the bar moving across as it loads the OS, nor the password prompt. Just goes straight from the grey screen with an apple on it to a plain blue screen.

BTW, I'm running an mSATA SSD in a 44 pin adapter, just like you describe. Could it be part of the issue?
 
Originally Posted by JHZR2

BTW, I'm running an mSATA SSD in a 44 pin adapter, just like you describe. Could it be part of the issue?


Doubtful.

Out of curiosity, which version of OS X is this?

In any case, I think you need to fsck it.
 
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