Imac won't boot

Fr0dders

Fr0dders

Fr0dders

Caporegime
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
33,467
Location
West Yorks
So I first tried the obvious thing and reset the nvram / pram which didn't help.

It displays the grey screen, with an aple logo, and a spinning gear. The apple logo then turns into a circle with a line through it, like a no entry sign.

Pressing cmd and r to boot into recovery mode does nothing, it just carries on with the normal boot process, which then fails. Same with pressing shift and trying to get into safe mode.

The only other thing that's worked is pressing shift on startup. This gives me both the option for macintosh HD as well as the option for the recovery HD. However if I choose the option for the recovery HD. I just get stuck at an apple logo with a spinning wheel and no disk activity.

Short of going to the apple store has anybody any better ideas ? :( must have heard me talking about replacing it with a new one next week
 
Do you have the Mac OS Boot DVD?

You could run the Apple Hardware Test by inserting the DVD, power up the computer, and hold down the "D" key to get the test to run.
 
I had something similar (if i remember correctly) a few years ago with a couple of work imacs. Ended up getting them to boot by physically removing the bios battery. If you're comfortable taking it apart (work ones were well out of apple care) give it a go.
 
Its 5 years old so well out of warranty.

Its only gone and failed because it heard me talking about buying a new one this friday lol.

I may have to invest in a £2 suction lifter from ebay and give it a whirl. Its a late 2009 27" so has the glass front panel held in place by strong magents.
 
Clov!s said:
Do you have the Mac OS Boot DVD?

You could run the Apple Hardware Test by inserting the DVD, power up the computer, and hold down the "D" key to get the test to run.
Click to expand...

Alternatively, if you have another Mac (or friend's Mac) make a recovery USB drive. Link to info: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4848

You boot onto that using Alt and triage the disk from the disk utility, potentially reinstall the OS.

You could even go the step further and Mac a bootable Lion/ML/Mavericks installer to the same effect.
 
Prohibitory sign basically translates as boot failure. It's either a corrupt install or more likely a failing/failed hard drive.

If you've got access to another Mac with Firewire you can connect them up and run disk utility via Target Disk mode. You can also use that to "borrow" the optical drive and re-install OS X.
 
MagicBoy said:
Prohibitory sign basically translates as boot failure. It's either a corrupt install or more likely a failing/failed hard drive.

If you've got access to another Mac with Firewire you can connect them up and run disk utility via Target Disk mode. You can also use that to "borrow" the optical drive and re-install OS X.
Click to expand...

shiver said:
Alternatively, if you have another Mac (or friend's Mac) make a recovery USB drive. Link to info: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4848

You boot onto that using Alt and triage the disk from the disk utility, potentially reinstall the OS.

You could even go the step further and Mac a bootable Lion/ML/Mavericks installer to the same effect.
Click to expand...

Don't have another mac unfortunately :(
 
Last edited:
Nope.

Gonna get one of the guys at work to make me a USB recovery drive. There are a few mac users in the business so just need to butter one of them up.
 
I'm going to have to take you up on your offer. Turns out the recovery mode doesn't work when created on new macs and ran an old one that was pre lion.

I'll PayPal you the postage if you can trust me your details.
 
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