# Hung up on blue screen in Mac OSX 10.6.8



## Rangdrol (Aug 16, 2012)

I started having problems on my Mac Mini when I first got it.

I would get grey screens and blue screens appear when typing for extended periods of time. A reboot would always take care of the problem. Eventually, after 3 times to the Genius Bar, I gave up.

Then I started not being able to read CDs, and then a little over a year after I had purchased the computer, I realized I could not burn DVDs. Since I never burned them before on my own systems, I thought I wasn't doing it right, and two months later, I went back to Genius Bar and they told me (without even looking at it) that the optical drive was dead.

2 weeks ago I started having Time Machine crash issues. Then my Finder.app crashed, deleting or hiding all my Desktop icons. Then I found a fix and pumped it into Terminal:

/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder & disown

That brought all my icons back up and I rebooted. Since then, I cannot log back onto my computer. WHen I do, it starts up, the grey Apple icon loads, the spinning icon (not the Beachball) and then it switches to a dark blue screen, blinks to black screen, and then to a lighter blue screen. And then it hangs there.

I've tried ALL keyboard combos, and only Single User key allows me to access Terminal. 

Does anyone know how I can use my computer again? I CANNOT use my install DVDs (Command C, or Command D keys) because they simply don't work, and get spit back out again.

I also d/c all peripherals, unplugged and replugged every peripheral, waited for days, etc., no go. This computer is just 1.5 years old, so Im disappointed Apple wouldn't repair for me, since I had problems from day one, and the very first Mac Mini I purchased from the GB was a lemon and they told me so the first day I bought it, telling me that it would take longer to install RAM into another, so this must also be a lemon, like the first one?

If anyone has any Unix Commands which would help me reinstall or remount my hard drive, that would be great.

I read that this could be a cache issue, so I tried the safe boot, but no luck:

"A Safe Boot deletes the dynamic loader shared cache at (/var/db/dyld/). A cache with issues may cause a blue screen on startup, particularly after a Software Update. Restarting normally recreates this cache."

Because I had the Finder.app issues, I read that deleting Finder preferences might be an issue, and though I had done that in GUI mode, while my computer was still working, I tried via the tsch shell in Terminal.

" rm /Users/_shortname_/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist"

I also tried this Command:

" rm /Users/_shortname_/Library/Preferences/com.apple.sidebarlists.plist

and then finished it off with: "sudo rm -Rf ~/.Trash/*" No luck. 

_I later realized how dangerous this command is/was, and how I could have deleted "all the contents of my home directory" simply by adding an extra space after the "." and the "T" in trash, so be careful, y'all_. In my desire to fix this problem I have been playing in Unix like a French Canadian in _poutine_. (Yeah, I am French Canadian.)

Finally, I used these commands to further cleanse the Launch Services, but if I wiped them out, and I can't reboot, then that may be the problem, since they cannot be re-created? 

Does that make sense? And is there any way of re-creating them??

rm -i ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist
rm -i ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.QuarantineEvents
rm -i /Library/Caches/com.apple.LaunchServices* 

Om Ah Hung


----------



## cl-scott (Jul 5, 2012)

Sounds like you have at least two separate issues. 

The first is that your optical drive is bad. I lost count how many drives I replaced for that very issue.

Your second issue is either a bad HDD or bad RAM, maybe even both. You can try taking it into an Apple store and arguing that you've been having these problems since before your warranty expired, but I doubt they'd go for it. 

So I would take it into an Apple store, and not leave until someone has agreed to take the thing into the back and run ASD on it. Tell them you want them to run the full surface scan on the HDD, and you understand it can take a couple of hours, so you'll be back the next day or whatever. Don't worry if you don't have a clue what that is, they should. Once you get the repair estimate, and picked yourself up off the floor, you can start looking for a new unit to buy.


----------



## Rangdrol (Aug 16, 2012)

Thanks, I appreciate it! Yes, you are right, I had issues from the very first month, and what I realize now is that the quality of Apple has gone down hill, but everything is made in China, so Im surprised?

I think that the 99$ fee for the extra 3-year warranty coverage is no longer just an option, paying it should be viewed as just an additional fee, added to the total cost of the computer.

They did tell me that my optical drive was dead, but I dont know what that means, I thought that it was only the drive that creates DVDs, or CDs, etc., so maybe the easiest thing is to just shell out the 200$ and have it replaced? 

It seems I have bad luck with computers... 

Thanks for your help! PS what is "ASD"?


----------



## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

Apple System Diagnosis. If the drive is dead, it means it can't read or write anything you stick in it. As for $200 to fix it, save it for a new computer. If the Mini is giving you this much issues, it's not worth fixing, IMHO. If it was giving this much problems at the start, they should of replaced it with a new Mini. My MacBook had issues, and after the 3rd visit, they finally replaced the mainboard, and I haven't had an issue since, and that was three years ago. I was miffed that in the 1st month my Mac wouldn't even turn on, but I knew Apple has high quality standards, but a bad egg will still get through every once in a while. Did you keep all the records from your early visits? those could go a long way to get them to take a closer look at it as proof that it was bad at the start.


----------



## cl-scott (Jul 5, 2012)

It's Apple Service Diagnostic, but it really doesn't matter because no one outside of AASPs gets access to it. I just like messing with the "geniuses" at Apple stores by telling people highly specific and detailed things to say that will make them think that this customer knows what they're talking about, and not to try and pull anything over on them.


----------



## sayara (Aug 25, 2012)

Any chance you have another mac computer? You could connect them up via a firewire cable then hold down T on the mac mini and this would allow you to do some additional troubleshooting or reinstall the operating system. You could purchase an external dvd drive for less than $200 if needed.


----------

