My Mac will not start. When I hit the 'On' button, the machine makes a funny sound, my screensaver comes up then nothing happens. I can see in the upper-right-hand corner the magnifying glass that forms part of the menu bar. But when I move the cursor there, the so-called 'beach ball of death' appears. What can I do?
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DQ: There are few problems as frustrating as a personal computer that will not start. This sort of problem will happen to a Mac, just like any other computer, at some stage. There are things you can do to protect yourself: back up all your important data is one. But you ought to back up the entire system.
com/iq/my_mac_wont_start.html, which has what I consider an essential reference section. It contains a little portable document format file that is called, appropriately, MyMacWontStart-PocketMod.pdf. This file has several last-resort ideas to try before you take the machine in for repairs. It has saved many Macs.
The first thing you need to do is boot the machine with the 'Shift' key held down. You will get a message that says 'safe boot'. Ignore the message and wait. It can take a long time for the machine to boot this way, so don't panic. Once the machine comes back to life, simply shut it down as normal then reboot it without holding down the Shift key. That process will often solve the problem.