Just bought a new (2012) mac mini and the hard drive is blank. I don't own any other mac's so I'm lost about how to install an OS. What do I need to do and No, it didn't come with any discs.
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Mac mini, No OS installed
I have an aluminum Macbook from late 2008, model A1278. I just had to replace the hard drive, and need to install an OS on the currently blank HDD. Problem is, my CD drive doesn't work, so I can't just install from a disc. I had installed Mountain Lion on my old hard drive, but the original OS was Snow Leopard. I haven't succeeded in getting any of my information off my old HDD. Is there another way to install either Snow Leopard or Lion onto my new hard drive?
View 1 Replies View RelatedDoes anyone have a problem with the mini suddenly rejecting blank DVD's?
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Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.5.8)
I have a problem with my mini/quicktime setup and i was hoping for some help from you all at macrumors...
Here is the setup
This system is setup for a admissions office in which we have a mac mini set up to a LCD screen that is all mounted on a wall.
we have the mini on timer to come on from 1230-5pm and when the mini comes on, quicktime is set to automatically open and play the admissions video.
Now here is the problem:
when I turn on the LCD every day, the screen is blank but Ican still hear the video, I figured it was in hibernation so i move the mouse and hit the keyboard and nothing. i need to push the power button and hold it for a couple seconds then the movie comes on but the video is choppy.
here are the specs on the mini: 1.25 power pc G4, 512 Ram.
its old but its only function is to play this video...
I bought my Mac Mini in late 2006 and have had very few problems with it up until recently. I installed Boot Camp with Windows XP on the computer and have been using both operating systems fairly equally until the Windows XP operating system stopped working correctly. I decided it would be best to back up my data and reformat, so I erased the Windows XP partition and am currently trying to make the partition again. Heres the problem: Whenever I insert the Windows XP install CD (or any CD - music or not) it just displays as 'blank cd/disc' and when I try clicking it, the Mac Mini says there is nothing on the disc. I have tried burning the Windows XP operating system to several discs as well to see if my copy was faulty, and yet it will not work.
View 5 Replies View RelatedI came home for lunch today, and found my Mac Mini G4 with the fan running, and a blank screen. It was obviously locked up. System has 10.5.2 with all of the latest updates. This is not my primary system, I have an MBP for that.
Here is what I did:
Force a power off/on, and I get the normal gray screen with the Apple, and spinning gear, but it never stops spinning.
I am new to the site, and a new macbook owner as well. My macbook only has a 120gb hard drive and I have already upgraded the ram to 4gb so before I start using it daily I want to get a bigger hard drive in it and the new Leopard OSX because I currently have the Tiger.
When I get my 320GB Scorpio Black SATA 7200rpm hard drive and I install it (which seems very easy to do, almost like the same as taking out and replacing the ram), what steps do I need to do when I boot up the laptop with the blank hard drive? Do I need to put the CD in before I boot it up? Will it prompt me to do anything as it boots up?
I am trying to set up boot camp on my new mac mini. The primary reason is that 10.6 intel macs don't support my version of mac photoshop (Photoshop 7). I have an XP version of photoshop installed on my old laptop, and want to boot XP on my mac and move it over. However, when I tried to install Boot Camp, and re-started with the windows CD in from Boot Camp, I had a gray screen for a bit, then a blank screen.
I have a brand new Mac Mini, with OS X 10.6, and I set up the boot camp partition successfully. My windows CD is XP with SP2 as apple claims is required.
Additionally, I have an external hard drive with a .bkf file on it from a backup of my old PC laptop that has photoshop in it, but I can't extract that to my BOOTCAMP drive, at least without windows already installed on it.
I tried some other windows CD's, and a windows DVD that are supposed to be bootable borrowed from friends, using the boot camp application, with the CD in, at least XP SP 2, and I still got a blank screen as it re-started, and thus have been unable to install windows.
Is there another way I could install windows? Perhaps from my .BKF file? Is there something I might be doing wrong? I do have an older monitor, a viewsonic 17 inch, and I'm using an apple adapter. Could it be that windows install CD's don't support my graphics card? If so, how am I supposed to install windows? Also, my keyboard doesn't seem to be recognized either. It is a macally ikey extended keyboard, and I can't even get the caps lock light to turn on while it is trying to load of the windows XP disk with boot camp.
I've got a problem with my harddrive, it's on its way out. The Mac will still start, but after a while, the HDD gets stuck and so it's time to replace. I have a full backup on my time machine external hard drive - my question is, how do I get this on the new blank hard drive?
I'm using 10.5.8, but I don't have an installation disk. THe HDD was replaced once before under warranty, and the people in the shop were kind enough to stick on the new system, upgrading me from 10.4, so no disk available. I MIGHT have an installation disk for 10.4, but as far as I understand, I would not be able to restore my system because my backup is on 10.5.
Also, I'm pondering installing an SSD which would be 125GB (financial reasons prevent me from buying a bigger one).
My current HD is 160GB, i.e. the backup will be bigger than the capacity of the SSD. I presume if I somehow get to install Leopard (or Lion) on it, I can restore selected folders, thereby circumventing the problem?
Info:
MacBook, Mac OS X (10.5.8), 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1GB, 667 mhz, ddr2sdram
I inserted a blank disk earlier today. Automatically a hazard icon appeared where the eject icon should be. Now the disk wont come out and there is no obvious way to remove it.
View 4 Replies View RelatedMy mac mini (2010) has started to not show up CDs lately. I insert an audio CD and it comes up with a message that I have inserted a blank CD. When I do the same in Boot Camp (windows 7) it works fine. I am running Lion. This didn't happen when I installed Lion, it happened only in the last couple of weeks. I tried the method in one post about creating a new user account and trying from there, but to no avail.
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Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
I purchased a Mac Mini about 2 months ago and was making DVD backups with a Samsung SE-S084D external drive. The first ones went OK, but now the system suddenly stopped recognizing blank DVDs... the drive reads all other discs unless the ones that are blank. It keeps saying The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer.
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Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7.4)
I recently picked up an iMac G3 with a 600 MHz G3 Processor and a slot-loading CD-RW drive. It had 10.2.8 and 9.2.2 installed. I went into the startup disk menu in system preferences and tried to restart in 9.2.2 and be adventerous. But it would just flash a floppy disk with a ? mark. No matter what I did I could not get back to Mac OS X. I also have a MacBook with Tiger restore CDs. I tried to install that on there but could not and decided to see if it would work if I erased the drive. It did not. So now I have an iMac G3 with a blank hard drive and a Cd drive and a mind that is completely clueless about what to do!
View 3 Replies View RelatedI was trying to burn a new cd and before I used the application I had inserted a blank disk which my computer didn't recognize. When I tried the application to burn the burn folder, I got a message to insert a blank disk. I tried using the Disk Utility, but when I try to select the volume Superdrive, the option is dimmed. How do I eject the blank disk from my Superdrive? I tried restarting but that did not eject it.
Info:
OPTIARC DVD RW AD-5080H
My bootable drive is a JBOD (concatenated array) of two internal disks. Therefore I cannot use Bootcamp. I have placed a third blank drive in the third hard drive bay. I have my download of the Windows 7 beta, which I burned to a bootable disk using Disk Utility (.cdr file). Now, might any of you in the audience be able to inform me of what I should do to get the Windows OS from the bootable disk onto the completely blank internal drive?
View 22 Replies View RelatedI am going to install a new SSD drive on my MBP mid-2009. After it is installed, can I then start up computer and then insert the DVD Install operating system disk, or do I install the DVD install disk, then shut down computer and swap the HD drive? I know that I will reformat the disk when Installer begins, but I want to know if the computer will recognize the install disk with a new blank HD in place.
View 7 Replies View RelatedBefore snapshot: Snow Leopard on one partition, all is normal.
Current snapshot: Lion installed on top of one parttion.
Goal: Install Snow Leopard on a second partiton.
I recently purchased an SSD and plan to do the upgrade to my Macbook Pro early 2011.
What I'm planning to do is the following:Remove old HDDInstall SSD out of the box (un-formatted with no data on it)Boot up Macbook and start OSX Internet recoveryInstall OSX Mavericks
My question is, doing Internet recovery will apple Store let me install Mavericks right away or will I have to install
the original OS that the system originally shipped with (Mountain Lion) first and then install Mavericks?
Info:
MacBook Pro (13-inch Early 2011), OS X Mavericks (10.9.4)
I did some reading online, and know that the flashing question mark basically means that there's either a problem with the OS installation or the hard drive itself. I borrowed a friend's Snow Leopard installation CD (mine didn't come with the CD) to try to boot from it, but it refuses to boot from the CD.
The only keyboard bootup control that does anything so far as I can tell is the alt key (using a windows keyboard), which results a long delay while booting, followed by a blank screen with a mouse cursor. Everything else just ends up with the flashing question mark. If I try to hold C to boot from the CD, it sits there for 3-4 minutes with the occassional CD whirring sound, then ejects the CD and goes to the flashing question mark.
"In addition, it is possible to completely erase a hard drive and install Snow Leopard without a pre-existing operating system in place, enabling users to bypass the possible headaches of an upgrade and go with a clean install instead."
I'm a newbie here but wonder if the above AppleInsider statement is true. I installed Snow Leopard over my existing Leopard w/out a hitch. Earlier OS X retail DVD versions clearly distinguished between "Install" and "Upgrade" - correct?. I'm confused where I read Snow Leopard required an existing OS (Leopard or Tiger) to install. It appears Snow Leopard is a "full install" DVD?
Every time I try to install a software program onto my computer (Mac OS X 10.6.8), a blank permission screen pops us, with NO TEXT appearing. When I try to type in the information i think it's asking me, nothing shows up, as if my keyboard has been disabled. BTW, I've been trying to install Photoshop Elements and Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium, which I know are compatible.
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Mac OS X (10.6.8)
Ok guys, so here is the story, i just bought the 500 GB Blue Scorpio, ran the Time Machine back up on an external hard drive and wanted to install the 500 GB on my macbook, inserted the Mac OS CD and in the section where it asks where you want to install the Mac OS, i didnt see anything it was blank and it didnt give any options or anything.so now i installed the old hard drive and i am using that one, what am i supposed to do ?
My Safari homepage is blank. Bookmarks and toolbar are there but my Earthlink page and address bar are blank. The Safari version is 3.1.2 and the OSX is 10.4.11 My Internet Explorer (which I rarely use) and Firefox are working fine.
View 1 Replies View RelatedI'm going to be installing a new hard drive in my mini and I just want someone to verify that I'm correct. So once the hard drive is installed, I turn it on and then insert the OSX cd, is that all or do I have to configure anything else?
View 16 Replies View RelatedI have a 2006 Mac Mini that was running Linux and being a media center for the past few years. I've just replaced it with a different machine and was trying to put OS X back on it... but it just won't install.
I'm trying to install Snow Leopard from the actual Snow Leopard DVD, and it gets to a random point and does the Grey Death Screen (see image).
Just to test, I've installed Linux and Windows on it with no problems. I've, uh, also been able to install a hacked version of OS X on it (though that has it's own set of problems). But the authentic OS X randomly dies.
how to settle this.I am trying to install Adobe CS4 on my mini, but on the way that it will checking its system profile, this would always appear:
I installed same on my other units with no problems at all,but on my mini it seems it can't.
I have seen mentioned in a few other threads that the total recognized RAM might be superior to the official 4 Gb, just like older minis could see 3 Gb instead of 2. Has anybody tried it yet?
View 2 Replies View RelatedI have a 1.83 ghz intel mac mini. it has a busted internal cd drive, i use a sony dl dvd burner and 2 external hard drives. I have a retail copy of snow leopard. In the instructions, the guide says sl will install from an external optical drive. Heres what I have tried so far.
Installing from external optical drive- when i try this it goes through the normal verifications, i agree to eula, when i get to the grey screen with spinning apple, after a few minutes a "no" sign pops up, like a no smoking sign and my computer restarts and takes me to the login screen.
I thought maybe it was a disk space issues so i backed up, erased some items and freed up about 20 gb, giving me 30 gb of free disk space. tried again with installation and same thing happens.
next i went into disk utility and verified and repaired permissions, which was a lot, tried again and same thing. next i verified disk. disk is ok.
next i started thinking perhaps its the disk. so i tried to install sl on my moms unibody macbook. installation went fine, she is running 10.6 like a champ.
So then i decided to try a remote installation. i unplugged all usb devices, including the dvd burner and ran the remote install assistant. im using and ethernet cable connection, with the 2 computers plugged directly to each other, and i can browse both computers files from one another. when i restart the mini with the assistant running on the macbook, when i hold down option to select the start up device, the only option listed is starting from the mini's own hard drive and not the macbook.
I've tried everything i could think out with asking. But now i would really like some. If any one has any suggestions, i am all ears. Im gonna be heading for school now, and will respond with what ever I can after 10pm pacific.
Whats the best way to do a clean install on my mac mini?
I have basically sold it and looking at erasing my stuff on it, so therefore when the new person starts it, it takes them through all the welcome pages etc.
I am running snow leopard btw.
Can I install 16gb of ram into my i5 2.5 mac mini? currently it has 4gb ram. Crucial sells a 16gb kit. Apple only shows a max of 8gb correct?
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Mac mini
