Yesterday afternoon I started the defragmentation of one of the partitions of my macmini. During this time I went to the entrance of my apartment and there I accidentally pressed the red button of the circuit breaker. This immediately cut off the power. I started the meter on then I went to turn the macmini back on. I wanted to restart the defragmentation but then I was told to repair the partition. I restarted on a cd with burned morphos and I started to copy directories to another disk. But suddenly everything froze, the mouse pointer, the keyboard as well as the date and time. I wanted to restart by briefly pressing the on/off button but it was inoperative. So I unplugged the power strip, waited a few seconds then I wanted to turn the macmini back on but there was a failure. The macmini beeps 3 times, the led flashes 3 times. I did some research on internet but only got results concerning mac intel models, not powerpc. According to one of these results the RAM stick would be the cause. I looked on ebay as well as on leboncoin.fr and I found some offers at low prices for some and somewhat high for others. However, before buying a new 1 GB RAM stick I would like to have the opinion of other users. It could be that the fault is something other than the RAM. Who could answer me and tell me if I have correctly identified the fault or not?
Three beeps usually mean RAM failure. While I don't know how emergency power off during defragmentation would fry your RAM, replacing it is worth a shot.
I'd start with a PMU reset: unplug all cables including power. Wait 30s. Press and hold the power button and plug in power while holding it. Keep that up for 10s, then release power button.
I managed to fix it myself. After opening the Mac Mini, I first started it without a memory stick. It beeped once to indicate the absence of a RAM stick. Then I used a two-tone pink and blue school eraser. With it, I rubbed the memory stick connector several times on both sides. I put the stick back in place, started it up, and there was no beep. The Mac Mini started from the MorphOS boot CD that was still inside. I ejected the CD and then turned off the Mac Mini. I then put its cover back on, started again from the MorphOS boot CD, reformatted my system partition, reinstalled MorphOS, then copied the registration key and my data. Afterwards, I defragmented the system partition, and now everything is fine. The trick of rubbing the contacts with a two-tone eraser was suggested to me by amedia computer because I was having some trouble booting the AmigaOne X5000. This trick works with all types of RAM sticks as well as all types of expansion cards. It also certainly works with the processor daughterboards of the Pegasos 1 and 2.
