talonracer

A friend of mine has an older Mini that won't start, and if he boots into recovery mode, as soon as he clicks anything he gets the spinning beachball. Any suggestions on what he might do?

CubaMark

Has he tried the Single-User mode startup, followed by the command-line disk repair?

Here is how to enter Single User Mode and use fsck to repair the drive:

1. Boot the Mac into Single User Mode by holding down Command+S during system boot after you hear the boot chime, you know you will have successfully entered Single User Mode because you will see a bunch of white text on a black background scroll by
2. When the Single User boot sequence has finished, you’ll find a small command prompt at the bottom of the screen prefixed by a hash sign (#), when you see that type the following command exactly:

• Once fsck completes, if you see a “File system was modified” message, then you should run “fsck -fy” again until you see a message stating “The volume (name) appears to be OK” – this is standard procedure of using fsck
• Type “reboot” to leave Single User Mode and boot the Mac back into OS X as usual.

Once OS X is booted again, it can be a good idea to confirm all is well by going back to Disk Utility and running the “Verify” tool to check on the drives health.

(from OSXDaily)

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ChilBear

Does the Mini have a DVD/CD drive - if so get an install disk and hold down "c" (I think) to make the external drive the startup drive. That may give relief if the main HD is awol

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talonracer

Thanks folks - passed this info on and will hope it works.

eMacMan

Have not really kept on top of the mini series but some do have PRAM battery. These little batteries have created no end of havoc back at least as far as my LC 470. FSS (Failure to Start Syndrome) being the most prevalent.

Not sure about later models, this was what my very quick search dug up.

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac+min...placement/1114

Since you said older and older minis used 2.5" HDDs that could also be your culprit.

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