HELP!! iMac gone pear shaped

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Yv

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OK, using the machine last night and it suddenly became painfully slow whilst running LR and CS4. It has done it before and every few months I run Snow Leopard cleaner which seems to sort it all out and gets it back up to speed. Tried starting the program last night and it told me this version cannot run, please upgrade. Oh, I thought, pressumably SL has upgraded since I last ran the cleaner and therefore its out of date, but too tired now, will sort it out tomorrow. So closed all the programs down and closed the machine down, using the option from the menu.

Anyway, to add into the conundrum, this morning, I packed into the car, drove 8 miles down the road, got it out, all very carefully, and set it up in the flat with the intention of spending the day processing Saturdays wedding pictures. Except it wont boot at all.

It makes that intro noise and I get the white splash screen, with the Apple logo and the twizzy clock thing and thats it. :shrug:

So, luckily, the brat has come with me and brought her laptop, which I have now commandeered, so I have been through Darrens Mac tips thread, and found this tip. I have tried all options, including the check and repair disk thing. It did indeed repair a couple of items, but still wont boot.

If I try the safe mode, a bit like windows, I get a progress bar on the screen, which fills up and then nothing, right back to where I am.

Using the option to chose where to boot from does show the imac disk, so it is there.

Now then, the big problem, I bought the machine s/h with clean install of SL, but it didnt have a disc. I am about to order one from amazon anyway, as I now realise having my own copy is probably sensible, but does anyone have any ideas??

also, are the symptons of a HD or other hardware problem, or software? :(

really fed up about it now, I was going to have a lovely day too. */sigh/
 
I don't know much as I'm new to Mac but have you done a safe boot Yvonne? Hold the shift key down when booting. More info here Mac Support
 
Ajophotog said:
I don't know much as I'm new to Mac but have you done a safe boot Yvonne? Hold the shift key down when booting. More info here Mac Support
Click to expand...

If I try the safe mode, a bit like windows, I get a progress bar on the screen, which fills up and then nothing, right back to where I am.
Click to expand...

does that answer it? :lol:
 
sounds like HDD failure to me, have you tried resetting the PRAM, by pressing command + option + P + R as you start the machine, (you should hear 2 beeps)
 
yes, done that Rob, and I can hear the drive whirring like it normally does, though of course that doesn't necessarily mean its working properly. BUT, if the drive had failed completely, would the disk checking thing have worked? :thinking:

edit: I can hear the normal amount of humming and whirring would be more accurate btw, could juts be the fans I suppose.
 
Hi iam a mac user,
I had same problem as you, is your mac insured that is frist question, as my decide to pack up all together lucky I had the three year extra insurance, if not it would have cost me £800-00 the electronic board had blown, they good computers till something like this happens,
good luck hope you get it sorted
 
Not insured against this kind of failure, got it s/h and cheap enough that it wasn't worth it. If it is a hardware issue, I have no qualms about stripping it down and repairing/replacing components where needed, but being new-ish to mac I want to make sure all other possibilities have been explored first tbh.
 
Yv said:
yes, done that Rob, and I can hear the drive whirring like it normally does, though of course that doesn't necessarily mean its working properly. BUT, if the drive had failed completely, would the disk checking thing have worked? :thinking:

edit: I can hear the normal amount of humming and whirring would be more accurate btw, could juts be the fans I suppose.
Click to expand...


Hard drives can be intermittent when they start to fail, the disk check software will run but it will crash when trying to check the disk
 
now I have 10 minutes back on madames lappy, an update. Ran fsck -fy agaib and its completed for a 2nd time, this time with no repairs required and the final line says

**The volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK.

In addition, if I stick my head to the rear of the machine, I can actually hear that gentle click-whir very distintive of a HD doing its stuff.

NOt sure how much help that it, but its the only news I can add.

Anyhooooo, a few questions for my own benefit...bearin gin mind I have come from a windows background. Is there a raft of checks and stuff I can run from an OS installation disc [like windows repair console if you like]?

Should the worse happen I do need to replace something, or at least get inside to check, is it screen out first or aluminium bezel/facia panel first? Just curious, as they are not as obvious as a box of tricks or a laptop.

finally, is there anything else, any other commands I can run from this root command prompt to try and prod it kicking and screaming into some kind of life?

thanks for the advice so far too btw and if I am delayed in answering, its becuase I am sharing a laptop and her GCSE revision is probably marginally important than me repairing a computer, so please bear with me. ;)
 
Having tested what I can I am about 95% certain the HDD is fine, though I am not going to say 100% just in case. Let me put it this way, if it was a pc, I would be sticking a windows disc in and rebuilding the master boot record.... thats the only way I can compare it :(
 
Hi Yv

I know you said that your fairly sure that the HDD is ok, but I had the same sort of problem with my Imac, it just wouldn't boot, fortuneatley I still had 5 months left on the original warranty and took it back to Apple and they diagnosed it as HDD failure although I was sure it was ok because it was still making some sort of noise, they did replace it FOC but its a bit worrying that the HDD's fail like that after only a few months apparently its quite common on the Imac's.:(
I'm sorry it doesnt help you much but it might be worth trying another HDD if you can.

Wayne
 
I know jobe, I am not totally discounting it, I just cant help but feel it will be a PITA stripping this thing down first time to check, so will try anything else first...

...which reminds me...If I have a time machine back up [which I do, just not with me of course] can you boot from that, or, as I am suspeting, you can only use that to restore assuming you have HD access via the OS in the first place?
 
I believe you need to restore from the OS install disc, there is a restore from time machine option on the disc, I'm pretty sure you can't restore straight from a clean HDD using the time machine itself, someone else might be able to help on that.
 
well I managed to fight my way past the hoardes of iPad worshippers at the door and get in to buy an SL installation disc last night. Only had a brief time to play due to a dinner appointment at a neighbours, and will play more later, but using the disk utility, once again, everything seems fine in terms of the HD itself. Ran repair, verfy, repair permissions, etc etc and all is reported back as well. Still won't boot under its own steam though.

I checked everything else in the system was being detected [ram, etc] to make sure there wasn't a less obvious hardware issue and n as much as its possible o tell, again all seems to be ok.

So, in terms of documents and pics, everything was backed-up to an external drive, so they are not an issue. I haven't done a time machine backup for a few months, but do have one, though tbh, I would MUCH prefer to do a clean install. I know I made no end of errors with installations and stuff over first few months of ownership, plus now I have my own copy, would rather be using it. Just one thing, is there any way I can use Target Mode or something similar to retrieve things like emails that are saved within the mail client and no longer on servers? I do only have one apple machine, so any retrievals would have to be to an ext HDD, not another mac :shrug:
 
Target mode means that another Mac (not sure about PCs) will see your Mac as an external drive.
 
Thanks cb, I have been sitting here reading stuff and it does mean that, but wondering if there is any other method of doing something similar, with the proviso that I have several other machines, ext hd's etc, but no other mac machine :shake:

I might have to bite the bullet and lose a few bits and just go straight for a clean install, but would prefer to be able to retrieve stuff first if pos. I have found something, using an ext HD, but not sure its a legitimate or indeed workable method, so have posted on a Mac forum in the hope of getting some insight too.
 
Yv,

If you have a blank external, you could do a clean install to that, then try to read the internal, The MAC will boot to an external drive. You can then copy the external back to the internal using Carbon copy cloner.

We run several IMAC's from external drives, due to security requirements.

Hope this Helps
 
If you do need to get inside then the glass front is held on by magnets. You will need some suction cups attached to the glass to pull it off.

Good tutorials can be found here :)
 
Can you do an archive and install on Snow Leopard? This is basically a new install that preserves all your documents and stuff. I know it worked on Tiger, and I think it did on Leopard too but I haven't used a Mac in around 2 years now.
 
Graham_P_Clarke said:
Yv,

If you have a blank external, you could do a clean install to that, then try to read the internal, The MAC will boot to an external drive. You can then copy the external back to the internal using Carbon copy cloner.

We run several IMAC's from external drives, due to security requirements.

Hope this Helps
Click to expand...

As long as it connects via Firewire (unless that has changed recently)
 
Strangely I thought that too but our intels would not boot from firewire, but did using the USB same drives :shrug:
 
Have you tried booting from the install disk. This should get you to a state where you can recover those important bits.

You might want to make a separate boot volume on an external drive. I have one as a partition on my Time Machine drive. I update it about every 3 months . You can use Super Duper or CC to produce it. May help on occasions like this.
 
Thanks guys, this is the stuff I need to hear. Ok, yes, I can boot from install disk, and my spare ext is a USB, not firewire. Chappers, how can I recover the important bits by booting from the install disk, because that would be the most ideal scenario?

edit: I take that back, just found it, phew!! oh well, here goes nothing, just making sure this spare HD is clean, then going to give it a go.
 
Ok, I am using the restore feature in disk utility to make a copy of current internal HD onto an external HD [it could take some time looking at the current speed, but thats ok]

So, once that has done, I then go for a clean install on the internal drive, but that leads to the next MacMoron question - once a shiny new OS is installed, will I then be able to access the ext drive with the 'image' of the old installation on it, via finder in a normal tree like directory system, copying the bits I want back over? Or is there some other clever method? Maybe a transfer files and settings system or some such?
 
Yv

You should be able to access the info via finder and then copy it across. Just tried this with my backup boot drive and from Time Machine

If you have the data on a Time Machine drive you could try the restore function. I'd make sure the OS has all the latest updates in place first.

John C
 
I should really round this thread off for anyone searching for answers in the future. I copied the old drive over to the external drive via USB - took a couple of hours, but it was successful. I then used same disc utility to format the internal drive, then installed a shiny new version of Snow Leopard. I was then easily able to just drag and drop/copy and paste stuff from the old copy into the new. There are a few more bits I want from there then that drive will be used as a time machine disc.

All now working perfectly again thankfully, no idea why it decided to mess up its boot files [as my guess is that was the problem], I can only assume I must have done something wrong, but for the life of me I know not what - and sometime over the next few weeks, I will stop finding programs I have forgot to re-install too :lol:

Thank you to those that offered advice :thumbs:
 
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