Mac Mini 2011 - Grey Screen in Mountain Lion Installation

I'm having major difficulties with my Mac Mini 2011.
It started with random grey screens appearing forcing me to restart. I restarted and continued working as normal.
Today, I restarted and it jumped directly into the grey screen again in startup.
1.
I booted into recovery mode
-Tried disk utility - repaired and everything seemed fine
-Rebooted and into grey screen again
2.
-Formated partition
-Started new installation and after downloading and 20min remaining, grey screen appears again
Restarted and everything went to grey screen portrayed in the link below:
https://www.box.com/s/yqzizv9g1enob4cdc4yr
I'm stuck.. I believe this should be a clean installation. Why isn't this working?
Can anyone help me please?

If you want to preserve the data on the boot drive, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data, you can skip this step.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is unable to fully boot. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
1. Boot from the Recovery partition or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) Launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in this support article, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.”
2. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, boot the non-working Mac in target disk mode. Use the working Mac to copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
3. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.

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How do I upgrade my Mac Mini running Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion? Thanks

I have a Mac Mini running Snow leapard. I believe i can update it to Mountain Lion but have read I have to first update it to Lion. This is where Im struggling. How do I get a copy of Lion as I cant download it as there is not an App Store on Snow Leapard.
Any help would be great!

Upgrading to Snow Leopard, Lion, or Mountain Lion
You can upgrade to Mountain Lion from Lion or directly from Snow Leopard. Mountain Lion can be downloaded from the Mac App Store for $19.99. To access the App Store you must have Snow Leopard 10.6.6 or later installed.
You can purchase Snow Leopard by contacting Customer Service: Contacting Apple for support and service. The price is $19.99 plus tax. You will receive physical media - DVD - by mail.
Third-party sources for Snow Leopard are:
Snow Leopard from Amazon.com
Snow Leopard from eBay
After you install Snow Leopard you will have to download and install the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1 to update Snow Leopard to 10.6.8 and give you access to the App Store.
You can purchase Lion by contacting Customer Service: Contacting Apple for support and service. The cost is $19.99 (as it was before) plus tax. It's a download.
Be sure your computer meets the minimum requirements:
Apple - OS X Mountain Lion - Read the technical specifications.
Macs that can be upgraded to OS X Mountain Lion
1. iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)
2. MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
3. MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
4. MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
5. Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
6. Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)
7. Xserve (Early 2009)
Are my applications compatible?
See App Compatibility Table - RoaringApps - App compatibility and feature support for OS X & iOS.
Am I eligible for the free upgrade?
See Apple - Free OS X Mountain Lion upgrade Program.
For a complete How-To introduction from Apple see Apple - Upgrade your Mac to OS X Mountain Lion.
Model Eligibility for Snow Leopard and Lion.
Snow Leopard General requirements
1. Mac computer with an Intel processor
2. 1GB of memory
3. 5GB of available disk space
4. DVD drive for installation
5. Some features require a compatible Internet service provider; fees may apply.
6. Some features require Apple’s MobileMe service; fees and terms apply.
Lion System Requirements
1. Mac computer with an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, or Xeon processor
2. 2GB of memory
3. OS X v10.6.6 or later (v10.6.8 recommended)
4. 7GB of available space
5. Some features require an Apple ID; terms apply.

Mac Mini Update - Grey Screen will not reboot

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I got my mac mini connected to a onkyo tx-nr414 reciever and then to my tv (philips pfl7676).
Now i got some kind of pink glow/hue over the whole screen, i also get this with my macbook air 2011.
Updated my reciever, switched every hdmi cable, did a pram reset, tried the mini display port.
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Anyone?

I had faced this issue with my MacPro and solved it by changing Display > Color settings to RGB something. Try some options there and it may fix your issue.
It could be a damages vga cable as well or loose VGA connections. Check pins of cable and mac.
Message was edited by: sanjeevgpc1

Mac mini and grey screen at startup

ok, so last night we come home and my mom tries to turn on her mac mini, but it just freezes on the grey screen in the startup process. i tried booting from the disk but it didnt work (no the disk is stuck in the drive cuz i cant start up the computer to eject it) i tried booting into a version of osx on my external hd by holding down option at startup, but nothing showed up not even the internal hd. none of the startup commands work (firewire target,single user,safe mode, holding mouse to eject cd) none of those worked, any ideas?

First off, why can't you insert the original install
DVD that came with your mini?
The drive won't take the disk at all. I tried other disks as well, and it won't take any of them in either. The drive is pretty much non-responsive.
Secondly, if you leave the mini on the grey screen,
what happens? Does it keep going however long you
leave it, or does it show a flashing questions mark
after maybe 15 minutes?
It remains on the gray screen for however long I leave it on.
Thirdly, since the mini was running for a couple of
days after the 10.4.8 update, the problem seems
unlikely to have been caused by that. What were you
doing the last time the mini was in use? How did you
shut it down?
Browsing the web, email, and listening to music for the most part. I put it to sleep for the night, and then when I came back the next day to activate it, it froze on me. Pointer wouldn't move, it was locked up. First time that has ever happened to me. After that I ended up turning it off by holding the power button down for five seconds. When I turned it back on, I got the gray screen.
Fourthly, what model of mac mini is it?
It's the original basic model. 1.25 G4 processor, 40 GB hard drive, and 256 MB RAM.
Mac Mini Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Mac Mini 2011 Black screen

I have a mid 2011 mac mini (Intel HD 3000 graphics) with 8 Gb RAM running Yosemite (10.10). It's connected to a LG 42 inch monitor.
Randomly, the screen blacks out for 2-3 seconds and then returns.
I have:
Reset the PRAM
Removed one of the memory SIMMs so that only one bank is used
Looked at the system reports on Console but nothing pertinent appears to come up
None of these have helped. The problem only started occurring after an OSX software update in Snow Leopard and have persisted through Mavericks and now Yosemite.
I've seen problems here on other Mac Minis and their solutions but nothing for a 2011 Mac Mini with HD 3000 graphics.
I'd be grateful for any solutions.

I should add that I connect to the monitor through HDMI.

How to upgrade Mac mini server Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion

Trying to upgrade Mac mini server running Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion. I downloaded Mountain Lion and about to install but a warning prompt tells me server functionality will be lost until server.app is applied. What is involved in doing that?

What's involved? Buy and load OS X Server; that's now a Mac App Store app.
That'll get you Server.app.
Server.app is the GUI tool that is used to manage recent versions of OS X Server, along with (increasingly) the command line management of the features that are not exposed through the Server.app tool.

Mac stuck on startup screen after Mountain Lion install

After installing Mountain Lion my Mac restarted and has been on the startup screen (apple logo with loading icon spinning) for the last hour... I'm assuming this means my hard drive crashed during the install? What ***** is this happened when I installed Lion the first time. Wasn't a cheap fix and lost everything.

Similar if not the very same issue with my late 2009 iMac since upgrading to Mountain Lion.
First time I've seen actual script - DOS-like text (well, Linux or UNIX or whatever it is) that only seems to appear from a cold boot.
First time this happened I held down the power button until the system restarted.
Second time around - and from a cold boot - I entered "/exit" at the prompt and the system appears to have continuted the boot process.
Someone in another post added the following:
Open console in Applications>Utilities, check the system log for the date/time of the last problem startup for clues.
...but from this I still coudn't see where the error lies. :/

What is causing my Mac Mini to crash while running Mountain Lion?

Hello!
I have an Early 2009 Mac Mini that I had 10.7 installed on for quite some time. Everything worked really well, and I was very pleased with it. I upgraded my Macbook Air to 10.8, and have been very pleased with it as well. Not the case though, with the Mac Mini, since upgrading it to 10.8.
Currently it's running on 10.8.1 (12B19), and it is crashing all the time. Programs of all kinds (iTunes, Skype, Safari, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, etc...) will just randomly vanish off the screen, and are followed by a "________ quit unexpectedly" window, to report the problem. In each and every case (usually +5 times a day) I report all of the crashes.
Several times as well, I have also had the entire computer crash and reboot itself. That is perhaps the most frustrating of all. Most times the screen will turn black, it will make it's "ding" sound, and then begin restarting itself. Sometimes the screen will freeze and the spinning loading icon will appear on the screen for 10-15 seconds, and then it will black-out and reboot itself.
I've tried to deal with it for a while now, but I'm getting a little impatient at it and I'm curious if anyone else is experiencing the same thing. I have TONS of error report logs, so if you'd like to see one, I'll be glad to post it.
Thanks in advance!

Try this - Reset the iPad by holding down on the Sleep and Home buttons at the same time for about 10-15 seconds until the Apple Logo appears - ignore the red slider - let go of the buttons. (This is equivalent to rebooting your computer.) No data/files will be erased. http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1430http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1430
 Cheers, Tom

HT1338 OS X ver 10.5.8 on a mac mini, can i upgrade to mountain lion?

OS X ver 10.5.8 on a mac mini3,1, can i upgrade to mountain lion?

Here's the requirements.
http://www.apple.com/osx/specs/
 Cheers, Tom

Mac Mini 2010 reboot once on Mountain Lion Server

I upgrade my Macmini 2010 (Core2 Duo) on Mountain Lion and install Server.
Everything works great ... but very often the macmini reboot.
Bring it to AppleStore. They re-intall Snow Leopard (cool ...) make a lot of tests and say : there is no hardware problem.
Ok, install back to Mountain Lion, install Server and ... once again get a lot of reboot ...
Any idea ?

At the store they reinstall it with snow leopard, not mountain lion.
Don't install server.
At home just have monitor connected through hdmi/dvi original cable and keyboard and track pad through Bluetooth.
Do you thing that I've to connect different devices (mouse and keyboard via USB cable and monitor through HDMI) ?

System Crash Screen after Mountain Lion Installation

I tried to install Mountain Lion on 2 different MacBook Pro Laptops, one newer 15" running latest version of OSX Lion and the other a 13" running latest updated OS as well. I can download the software, it goes through download, starts the app, I get the app started on the install and then let it do it's thing, when I return to check on it I get a screen full of numbers and text with the error message that states you have to press and hold power to turn off. The same kind of screen you get when your system crashes and can't run.
Not sure if it's when it's trying to reboot or if its when the OS is installing. I run little snitch and gave the app full access on all ports to the Internet, but not sure. The 13" MP wasn't connected to anything except a LAN cable, no external monitor or keyboard or even a mouse. Just the laptop itself.
The 15" is connected to display, keyboard, mouse and an external hard drive.
The only way I was able to fix, was to reboot using Command R to get into recovery mode and restore from backup using Time Machine worked perfectly fortunately.
Any ideas on why it wouldn't install? or how to fix?
I even made sure to close down all applications first prior to installing.
The only thing I didn't do was to disable Time Machine, not sure if it tried to kick off during the installation and that made it crash or not?

I disabled Time Machine and tried it again. This time I watched it. It ran the first part of the application and then rebooted. When it rebooted it came up with the following text screen with the window to reboot hold down power button:
[pani(cpu 1 caller 0xffffff8000540a4f): "Process 1 exec of /sbin/launched failed, errno 2"@/SourceCache/xnu/xnu-1699.26.8/bsd/kern/kern.exe.c:3546
Debugger called <panic>
Backtrace (CPU 1), Frame : Return Address
0xffffff8078023e00 : 0xffffff8000220792
0xffffff8078023e80 : 0xffffff8000540a4f
0xffffff8078023ee0 : 0xffffff80005268d0
0xffffff8078023f10 : 0xffffff80005528f9
0xffffff8078023f50 : 0xffffff800021e143
0xffffff8078023f90 : 0xffffff80002c3d3a
0xffffff8078023fb0 : 0xffffff80002da09c
BSD process name corresponding to current thread: init
Boot args: config="\OS X Install Data\com.apple.Boot"
Mac OS version:
Not yet set
Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 11.4.0: Mon Apr 9 19:32:15 PM
Kernel UUID: A8ED611D-FB0F-3279-8392-E7A32C5E7D74
Sytem model name: MacBookPro5,5 (Mac-F2268AC8)
System Uptime in nanoseconds: 2087061014
Error message window: You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button until it turns off, then press the Power button again.

My Mac Mini and MacBook, both running Mountain Lion, say that a brand new 16gb SDHC card is not readable. What's going on? Is it the card?

I'm using a brand new SanDisk 16gb SDHC card and the moment I put it into the reader it says "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" with options to Initialize Ignore or Eject.
Any thoughts?

Hello people.
I cryied long enough, browsing the Internet looking forward to a solution for the same case you are stating here. That said, I do not want you to suffer any longer the way I did if you run out of solutions...
In my case, I was trying to copy images from my SD-HC 2 memory card (San Disk, 8GB) to my computer (Mac). I was using a chinese memory card reader (Kino, "Mini Multi in One memory card reader", model SY-682, USB 2.0). The memory card reader/hub used to work just fine before, but till recently it didn't...
I had a suspicion on my OS updating, since I used to copy images from this SD Card to my computer on a monthly basis (I used to have Mac OSX 10.6.8, and a technician recently changed my Mac's operating system to 10.7.5 or so, as far as I can detail... It wasn't a god job what he did, but anyway)...
My husband saw me crying in front of the computer after reading and chasing to a lot of Google searches, and what he did was simply this:
I used to put the memory card in the reader, and then plug the reader into the Mac's USB port... And it didn't work... Right?
He, instead, did it backwards: he plugged the memory card reader to the Mac's USB port and THEN slide the memory card into the slot of the memory card reader...
By doing this, you do not get to see the image of the memory card in your Mac's desktop, BUT: if you open a new Finder window, you will see the image of the memory card into the left margin of the window, right behind the "Devices" title... In my case, the memory card image just read "EOS_DIGITAL", as I use to take pictures with a Canon EOS camera...
Anyway, I hope this helps, and please replicate this answer to those in the same suffering I used to be till 15 minutes before.
Good luck.

How to create bootable USB thumb drive from Lion on Mac Mini 2011?

Hello folks
Yesterday my new Mac Mini (Core i7 2,7 Ghz, 4 GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD6630M 256 MB) arrived. It replaces my old Mac Mini (Core Duo 1,83 Ghz, 2 GB RAM, Intel GMA950 64 MB). One day I'll replace the 500 GB 5400 RPM HDD in this Mini by an Intel SSD drive (just like I did with my previous Mini). I'll do a fully clean install then (formatting the SSD drive in Disk Utility and then installing Lion on it from a bootable USB thumb drive). The only problem is I can't seem to download Lion for free from the Mac AppStore (MAS) although I have bought a new Mac Mini which came with Lion pre-installed. I know how to create a bootable USB thumb drive with Lion on it when you download it from the MAS. But that's the problem... I can't seem to download Lion from the MAS for free. When I open the MAS while holding down the Option key I can download Lion but it will charge me for it. Is there any way I can download Lion from the MAS without paying for it? Since it already came with my new Mac Mini 2011 this should be possible I guess?
And will I still be able to download the iLife '11 apps (iPhoto, iMovie and Garageband) for FREE that came with my new Mac Mini when I do a fully clean install as described above? Thanks in advance.
Greetings
Jocau

After doing some research, it seems that there are only 2 WAYS to do a complete reinstall of Lion on the Mac Mini 2011 without paying for the Lion download in the Mac AppStore (i.e. recreating every partition, also the Recovery HD partition, from scratch e.g. when installing Lion on a clean HDD/SSD).
1) COMPLETELY clone the Mac Mini 2011 HDD including all of its partitions to an external drive and restore it when you want to do a complete reinstall.
2) Use the LION INTERNET RECOVERY feature built-in into new Macs that ship with Lion (this feature is present in new Macs starting from the Mac Mini 2011 and Macbook Air 2011).
OS X Lion: About Lion Recovery
Lion Internet Recovery
If you happen to encounter a situation in which you cannot start from the Recovery HD, such as your hard drive stopped responding or you installed a new hard drive without Mac OS X installed, new Mac models introduced after public availability of OS X Lion automatically use the Lion Internet Recovery feature if the Recovery HD (Command-R method above) doesn't work. Lion Internet Recovery lets you start your Mac directly from Apple's Servers. The system runs a quick test of your memory and hard drive to ensure there are no hardware issues.
Lion Internet Recovery presents a limited interface at first, with only the ability to select your preferred Wi-Fi network and, if needed, enter the WPA passphrase. Next, Lion Internet Recovery will download and start from a Recovery HD image. From there, you are offered all the same utilities and functions described above.
As with the Recovery HD, reinstallation of OS X Lion from Lion Internet Recovery requires an Internet connection. See "Supported network configurations and protocols" below.
Restoring iLife applications after Internet Restore of OS X Lion
If you reinstall Lion on a new Mac that shipped with OS X Lion installed, on an erased or replaced hard drive, you can download iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand from the Mac App Store.
After installation, start from Lion.
Double-click the App Store icon in the dock.
Enter your Apple ID and password.
Click Purchases.
If you haven't previously accepted your bundled iLife applications within the Mac App Store, you should see your iLife applications appear in the Accept portion of the screen. Click Accept.
You may be asked for your Apple ID and password once again. Your iLife applications now move to the Purchased section. These applications are part of the software that came with your Lion based computer. Your account will not be charged for them. Click Install to compete installation of your applications.
Source: Lion Recovery
It's a bit sad that these seem to be the only 2 options. Lion Internet Recovery is the preferred one here since my monthly internet traffic limit isn't a problem (but my download speed is). This problem could have been easily solved by Apple by just checking the system specs or serial number when trying to download Lion from the Mac AppStore. By using one of the 2 options in my previous sentence the Mac AppStore could see that I have a new Mac Mini 2011 that ships with Lion which would give me the option to download Lion from the Mac AppStore for free and eventually create a bootable USB thumb drive of it.

Mountain Lion installer boots into recovery partition

Strange thing: being a registered devloper I downloaded the OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2) installer and wanted to upgrade one of my Mac minis (which was running 10.7.5).
However, the aluminum mid-2010 Mac mini acts strange: I copied the installer onto a USB stick and burned it onto a DVD, too. Tried to install from both media but the Mac mini boots either into the Mountain Lion recovery partition (so that was somehow created) or the Setup assistant lacks entries in lists and always jumps to step 1 after step 3 or 4 in an endless loop.
Once -- when I wanted to select the 10.8.2 OS X as boot volume -- I got an error message that boot caches can't be created so I can't set this partition as boot partition.
I've got app. 100 GB free on the Mac minis hard disk.

I was afraid the Apple Store wasn't going to be an option.
Based on your previous post, I was under the impression you could download Mountain Lion, but when you installed it, it locked up again. Not true?
I don't know how to remove it. You can try contacting Apple support through the link below to see if they can help you get this unlocked.
Apple Support Contact
Are the kernal panics new since all this happened?
Here is some information about kernal panics.
Kernel Panics - About
Kernel Panics - Avoiding and Eliminating
Kernel Panics FAQ
Kernel Panics FAQ (2)
Kernel Panics - Understanding and Debugging
The articles discuss where kernal panic reports are filed. After you have a kernal panic, copy the report and post it here. Please copy and paste rather than using a screen shot. There are several people who can read them and they can suggest what to do next. Reading kernal panic reports isn't something I've totally figured out yet.

Mac Mini 2011 - Grey Screen in Mountain Lion Installation

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