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User profile for user: Dave@MU
Dave@MU Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

2009 mac mini: gray blank screen; boot commands not working

This old mac mini (Intel Core 2 Duo model, pretty sure it has 8GB RAM) has been good to me, but is super slow now and the disc drive hasn't worked for years. I thought I'd try and convert it over to a basic linux box and get another couple of good years out of it. I tried to setup a linux bootable USB drive (using balena, after first formatting drive as instructed - guid partition, etc.).


After trying to boot to the drive and use mac boot commands (like Opt, Cmd-R, or Shift), it would immediately boot to grey screen (with no other icons/visuals). Booting without boot commands, I went back into MacOS and went into SysPrefs > Startup to see if it would detect the USB drive from there, but it didn't appear.


I went over to a WinPC and created a linux boot drive from it and tried to use the USB drive in mac mini after that, but it still wouldn't work. Unfortunately, at some point around the same time (it wasn't immediately after trying to boot to USB), I can no longer get past the grey screen (with or without mac boot commands and without any peripherals except a USB connected keyboard). I'm not sure where to go from here...the ONLY thing that appears to work is if I do PRAM reset mac boot command, it will reboot after I hold it for a few seconds (less than 10s) and will keep doing it...no other commands seem to work.


I kind of doubt this would be a hardware issue given that the computer was working fine before I started messing around with diskutil...but, if that's where I'm at then I guess maybe it's time to recycle this. But, not willing to concede quite yet!


Any ideas how I can get to either a bootable state or at least a state where the mac boot commands will work (so I can get to disk utility, mac recovery, or safe mode - anything really)?

Mac mini, OS X 10.11

Posted on Dec 10, 2022 9:02 PM

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User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
60,650 points

Posted on Dec 12, 2022 12:29 PM

Ubuntu 22.04 should boot that iMac assuming the USB stick is good. Macs can be very picky about the drives used for booting and the quality of USB sticks is extremely poor. At the very least you should be able to Option Boot the Mini to access the Apple boot picker menu even if the internal drive has failed (or the Linux USB stick is bad. In fact I believe you should still see something on the screen even if no bootable volumes are listed, although some hard drive failures may cause the system to freeze that perhaps nothing will show on the screen for the Apple boot picker menu, but this would be rare.


If all you see is a solid gray screen when trying to Option Boot the Mini to access the Apple boot picker menu options, then you have some sort of hardware issue with the Mini. Try disconnecting all unnecessary external devices in case one of them is causing a problem.


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User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
60,650 points

Dec 12, 2022 12:29 PM in response to Dave@MU

Ubuntu 22.04 should boot that iMac assuming the USB stick is good. Macs can be very picky about the drives used for booting and the quality of USB sticks is extremely poor. At the very least you should be able to Option Boot the Mini to access the Apple boot picker menu even if the internal drive has failed (or the Linux USB stick is bad. In fact I believe you should still see something on the screen even if no bootable volumes are listed, although some hard drive failures may cause the system to freeze that perhaps nothing will show on the screen for the Apple boot picker menu, but this would be rare.


If all you see is a solid gray screen when trying to Option Boot the Mini to access the Apple boot picker menu options, then you have some sort of hardware issue with the Mini. Try disconnecting all unnecessary external devices in case one of them is causing a problem.


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User profile for user: Dave@MU
Dave@MU Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Dec 12, 2022 8:21 AM in response to woodmeister50

I was intending on using Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTD, but hadn't really gotten too far with considerations of compatibility (other than to see that there were some articles on the web about doing exactly this - Ubuntu on 2009 mini).


I'm not at all sure about my USB bootable skills (though I've done this in the past). I'd rather take this one step at a time and address my primary issue which is that it won't boot at all - with or without mac boot key combos.


Side note: I would love to create a DVD from the ISO; unfortunately, the DVD drive on the mini doesn't work (and is quite literally the only DVD drive I've had on a computer in the past 10+ years ;-) ).

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User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
60,650 points

Dec 18, 2022 9:49 AM in response to Dave@MU

If you cannot boot to the internal drive either, then I would remove the bottom cover and disconnect the hard drive cables from the Logic Board, cover the connectors with some tape so they don't accidentally make a connection. These connections are easily accessible with the bottom cover removed. Try booting from a bootable USB stick (macOS, macOS installer, or Linux). You can also try removing the memory to see whether you get the three beeps when powering on the Mac without any memory. If you get the three beeps, then install a single stick of RAM and try again to boot. Then remove that memory stick and try the other one so you can eliminate memory as a possible problem. Try both memory slots as well. It is rare for more than one memory slot to fail at one time. If none of this helps, then it is probably time to retire this Mini as there are no other easy fixes or troubleshooting tips.


Actually the only other tip regarding using Linux to test boot this Mini is to try using Knoppix and/or the Debian Netinstall (it is usually the default option when downloading the Debian installer). UEFI computers tend to be very picky about how the bootloader is named. I know that some Macs seem to be more forgiving than others. I know that the Debian Netinstall image uses a generic "boot" name for their bootloader. I'm unsure what Ubuntu or other Linux distributions may use/name it. I also know that Knoppix tends to boot just about any older system out there...it is rare that I cannot get Knoppix to boot a computer even an older Mac. This is only about seeing if the Mini will boot since you really don't want to install Knoppix and the Debian Netinstall will require a wire Ethernet connection since the Apple WiFi chip may require non-free drivers not available with the default Netinstall image.

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2009 mac mini: gray blank screen; boot commands not working

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