The case of the unbootable Mac mini

http://www.macworld.com/article/145418/2010/01/unbootablemini.html?lsrc=rss_main

by mshafrir • 17 years ago

48 18 17 years ago

0wned• 17 years ago

Add or remove RAM (basically change the amount) clear NV memory three times (you'll hear the dong 3 times) and that will clear the OpenFirmware password... at least on older PPC Mac Minis.

bcl• 17 years ago

That's one I'm going to file away.

jrockway2• 17 years ago

Nice. The PC boot sequence may not be as beautiful as the Mac's, but at least you get a clear error message when something goes wrong.

(My machine's motherboard even has a little display on it that displays diagnostic codes for things like "couldn't set CPU multiplier" and so on. This makes it really easy to debug the flaky hardware that all non-mainframe computers are built from. Easier than a flashing question mark, anyway.)

pwmanagerdied2• 17 years ago

You can hold down a key when you turn a Mac on to have it switch from the default "pretty" screen to a normal wall-of-text booting screen. The problem for the author was that he'd locked himself out of these options when enabling some security feature previously.

jrockway2• 17 years ago

Right, but when you don't know the BIOS password on a PC, it says: "Enter supervisor password". If his Mac had said this, there would never have been any doubt in his mind as to what was going on.

wvenable• 17 years ago

PC's have "pretty" screens as well but if you ever have a problem the wall-of-text will come up instead. Much more useful.

gcb2• 17 years ago

He forgot the 4th conclusion item:

if you have a mac, don't waste time on 'security' options. it will just piss you off and still not be any more secure.

sacrilicious• 17 years ago

I would be inclined to downmod this, but instead I have to agree with the sentiment of 'fences not walls' when it comes to security, since too much security can be a bad thing. Mr. Frakes is being kind enough to give us a glimpse of forehead-slapping. If anything, the REAL 4th conclusion: write down the stuff you do that involves _locking you out of your machine_

gcb2• 17 years ago

the point is that even if he had had NO trouble himself, anyone wanting to get his data was just one search on the intrawebs away of find a really easy way of getting it.

so easy that he even managed to find by accident!

The case of the unbootable Mac mini

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