Before you take your Mac to the tech . . . .
Melanie McDonald
Have you ever noticed how computers—even Macs—seem to pitch a fit right before a deadline or when you have the least time to deal with problems? At MacTutor & Services we urge clients to save time and money by trying some basic troubleshooting if the computer crashes at startup or if you encounter one of the following signs of an incompleted boot: the startup icon spins endlessly, the sad Mac icon appears, or an attempt to boot brings only a flashing question mark.
Remember that when you turn on your Mac, the machine looks first for a system. If you see a frozen screen or cursor or an error dialog, you have crashed at startup. If your Mac cannot find a hard drive or your system on that drive, it will send you one of the above incompleted boot signals. Neither of these conditions is necessarily fatal, and a little patience can turn you into your own basic Mac tech.
Whether you are using OS 9 or 10, the first step should be to attempt a re-boot on the theory that your Mac has simply hiccoughed and needs a restart. You can do this by either hitting the re-set button on older machines or, if there is no re-set button, holding down the power button to shut the machine down and then hitting that same button to reboot.
If this fails to work, try zapping the PRAM, a simple operation that resets your parameter RAM. The zapping process includes restarting your Mac holding down the apple key plus the option key plus the P and the R keys—four keys in all, a maneuver that would make Van Cliburn proud! As the Mac boots, listen for several chimes then release the keys and allow the start-up process to continue. Then take your machine down again and reboot while keeping your hands off the keyboard.
If your Mac still will not complete the boot process, boot from your System disk and run Disk First Aid by clicking the REPAIR DISK option. (Note: with OS 9, remember to hold down the C key whenever you boot from a CD. With OS X, hold down the OPTION key to bring up the Startup Manager which will let you select the installation disk as your boot disk.)
(Clearly if you cannot boot from a CD, it’s time to call in the tech squad.)
Still no luck? If you have been savvy enough to install Tech Tool Pro or Disk Warrior on your machine in earlier days, you can reboot from one of those disks and let TTP or DW analyze and, you hope, correct any problems found.
And a final do-it-yourself option for the Mac user who does not want to get into the mysteries of the OS X safe boot or examining extensions in OS 9: do a clean reinstall of your system.
If that maneuver does not fix your problems, it is probably time to call your favorite tech and see if a phone consult can help before you spend even more money taking the computer in or scheduling a home visit. To make your telephone consult time-effective, be sure to have the following information on hand when you call your tech: the kind of Mac you have (e.g., G3, G4, iMac, G5), the system you are using, the amount of RAM you have. In addition, be able to tell your tech exactly what steps you have undertaken in your troubleshooting and what happened after each step. In other words, you can still save time and money by keeping notes as you troubleshoot and giving specific information to your technician.
Meanwhile, just in case you have to one day join the ranks of the troubleshooters, be sure to backup your files on removable media or a second hard drive and be sure to keep two or three copies of your system disk around in case one decides not to work. (Your tech can tell you how to make a system disk or you can locate the information at various sites on the net.) If you are interested in learning tons about the software you use as well as your firmware and operating systems, check out the MacFixit site at http://www.macfixit.com. To search the archives and post in the forums, you will need to become a member, but you can read and learn for free at the site.
McDonald, president and CEO of MacTutor & Services in Southern Pines, is an apple authorized service provider whose business includes technical and networking services as well as system and software tutoring and design consulting. She can be reached at 910.246.2150 or mobbs@pinehurst.net.
