

The case of the unbootable Mac mini - mshafrir
http://www.macworld.com/article/145418/2010/01/unbootablemini.html?lsrc=rss_main

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0wned
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.

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jrockway
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.)

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pwmanagerdied
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.

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jrockway
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.

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pwmanagerdied
Sure, but in general it's not as bad as your post suggests.

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

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gcb
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.

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sacrilicious
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_

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gcb
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!

