Randall J. Lopez 
If you’ve got been doing a track for any length of time, you know which you don’t must be into recording for computers to be a large help. They help out in every different vicinity of life, so why have to your music career — whether or not it is complete-time or part-time, amateur or pro, making a song or drumming — be any extraordinary?
Even in case you’re not ready, willing, or able to strive to build a sub-$a thousand recording studio (no longer counting the cost of the pc, which you have already got, or direction), you could use your PC or Mac to do flyers for gigs, preserve the books, tweak digital images and even films, pursue a few (criminal) email campaigns and lots of other matters. But when you have jumped off into pc-based digital recording (in preference to digital recording, the usage of a stand-alone, hard-disk-based totally, all-in-one studios like a Roland V series or Korg D series), then the laptop is extra than your bookkeeper or group of workers artist. It’s your co-producer.
You’re the boss
Sometimes you might not feel like you are the boss, though, particularly whilst the pc freezes inside the center of a consultation, or crashes during a crucial up- or download, or does any variety of different ungeeky matters. It is not uncommon for each mac and PC while using because the hub of a busily spinning track production surroundings, to emerge as from time to time “uncooperative.” It won’t start up sooner or later; it would start and freeze sooner or later; it’d simply sit down there, or it could heave and chug and pass “spring,” too.
Let’s take a look at what to do while the reluctant or troublemaking co-producer is not your human partner (for as soon as) but your computer. This time we will study useless, loss of life or dysfunctional Macs, and once more, we’ll communicate about PCs. We will deal with the most commonplace conditions, in which you have electricity and all of the pieces are set up properly (double take a look at your cables besides). Still, you get the infamous blinking query mark, a frozen laptop after start-up, or a start-up chime observed by way of zipping, zero, and nada.
Work the problem
Various startup methods allow for purchasing round simple “admin” password safety; that is what most conditions contain; in other words, there may be probable no fancy third-birthday celebration software program going for walks to defeat most or all of the following workarounds. None of the methods are absolutely painless or free. However, you have to determine how essential it’s miles if you want to have the contents of that pressure on the unbootable gadget. Now, allow’s damage down the strategies for you one after the other.
(1) By keeping the “c” key throughout startup, you can boot from a CD or DVD with a valid Mac System on it. Some G4’s (silver-door tower and earlier) will boot into both OS nine or OS X so that you can get one or the other variations or both. You should purchase the final OS nine bundle (9.2) for approximately $50, or you could purchase Mac OS X with the latest version (10.Five), placing you back $100 or so. If you do not want the most up-to-date OS X model, you can purchase 10.3 or even 10.2, so that it will fee you drastically less than the contemporary launch. If you do begin up with a Mac OS installer disk, you may visit Reset Password on the Installer or utility menu (depending on what model of OS X you get). And then you’re in the enterprise.
(2) Another startup option is to do simply that — which means hold the “Option” key as you hit the strength switch or keyboard button. This lets you pick a boot quantity amongst any connected drives, together with Firewire devices. This will paintings are simplest when you have an outside Firewire drive, with a Mac OS and some utilities installed, connected to your laptop. Although the Mac also has USB ports, you cannot begin up from an external USB power; don’t believe anyone who says in any other case, look it up on Apple’s web page for yourself. Who is aware of why they made ’em that way, but they did. If you could beg, borrow or steal an external Firewire power with a System and a few utilities already on it, this can make sincere paintings. Then you could again up anything you need from the pressure before reformatting it. If you can not borrow this type of tool, one would price you about 100 dollars, plus you’d need the OS to position on it, so this is probably a high-priced alternative.
(3) A barely more geeky technique is to preserve down “Options” whilst setting out so that OS X boots into “awesome consumer mode.” No password is needed to muck around with what is referred to as “Root” get right of entry to. Of path, you’ll be the use of Unix instructions at this factor. If you do not know Unix in any respect, you may get enough help from Wikipedia and different geeky sources online to discover ways the search out and disable the password safety scheme. If you aren’t a “laptop kind,” this might no longer be a realistic choice for you. This is a loose alternative, cash-clever. However, you can do untold harm mucking around in Mac’s mind, if you’ll if you’re not positive approximately what you’re doing.
(four) Finally, you may start up while retaining the “t” key down and turn the Mac right into a Firewire goal disk. This indicates that you can actually plug the laptop into some other Mac and that different Mac will see the primary as an external force. Then you may copy all of the documents you need to preserve to the borrowed Mac or to an external force which you have also hooked up to it. Like #2 above, this option calls for coming up with a few devices from somewhere, and of the route, you want to beg or borrow it (no longer thieve) if cash is tight. Do you’ve got any friends with a Mac laptop (a third millennium PowerBook, iBook, or new MacBook or MacBook Pro with the Intel chips)? Sure, you may use a more modern iMac or a Mac Pro tower. However, a pc sure could be easier. You can even want a Firewire cable (an “A to A” one, meaning each end are the same size).
You’re now not alone.
If you’ve got a sad (or konked out) Mac, this is what you’re up towards. It can seem hopeless in some instances. However, it’s not. In the Old Days, Macs have been fairly easy to troubleshoot and maintain. Not so any further with the Unix-primarily based OS and greater sophisticated hardware. But, with a little assist, you may do it. If you need extra technical assistance, there are literally loads of Mac-focused websites in which anybody from noobs (beginners) to strength customers can get hold of the fine Mac troubleshooting to assist, and even a few freeware or shareware restore utilities.
However, the Mac community remains a supportive one, so maintain soliciting for assistance and rendering a few to others however you can. You can be amazed by using the amount and excellence of the assistance that other Mac oldsters provide you. With some assistance, some staying power, and possibly a chunk of success, your Mac’s sad startup face — and your personal — can be domestic over again to a grin.
