Mac OS® X Snow Leopard™ for Dummies®

Chapter 19. Troubleshooting Mac OS X

In This Chapter

• Facing the ol' "My Mac Won't Boot" blues

• Dealing with the prohibitory sign

• Recovering from startup crashes

As a bleeding-edge Mac enthusiast with over a quarter century of Mac experience under my belt, I've had more than my share of Mac troubles. Over those years, I've developed an arsenal of surefire tips and tricks that I believe can resolve more than 90 percent of Mac OS X problems without a trip to the repair shop.

Warning

Alas, if your hardware is dead, then, sadly, neither you nor I can do anything about it because it is now a job for your friendly Mac repairman — and your fat checkbook or high-limit credit card.

But if your hardware is okay, you have a fighting chance of using the suggestions in this chapter to get your machine up and running.

The Ol' "My Mac Won't Boot" Blues

Although you usually see a stylish Apple logo when you turn on your computer, once in a blue moon you might not. What you do see might be a solid blue screen, a solid gray screen, a solid black screen, or something else entirely as described in the next section.

The point is that your Mac isn't starting up as it should. When this happens it usually indicates that something bad has happened to your Mac. Sometimes it's a hardware component that has bitten the dust; other times Mac OS X itself has somehow been damaged.

Rest assured these occurrences are rather uncommon — many Mac users go an entire lifetime without seeing one. If you ever have a Mac that won't ...