iMac HDD Replacement - won't unmount

wibbly

wibbly

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My old iMac cooked it's HDD a little while ago and I've just got round to putting in replacement HDD for my Daughter to use.

I managed to get an old copy of Snow Leopard working on it last night, but it won't let me update to Yosemite at least.

I've been trying to re-format the HDD and start over as I think I can do it more easily from a Time Machine back up, but I can't get the disc to unmount.

At present, it won't let me log on or do much else unless I'm in recovery mode. Tried using Disc utility but still can't unmount.

Any ideas what else I can try to unmount the disc?

Cheers
 
What model and year of iMac do you have and was it running Yosemite before your HDD failed?

IIRC Lion was the first OS to have a recovery partition, so with Snow Leopard, are you trying to unmount the start-up drive - which may explain your issue unless you are booting from an external drive.
 
JohnM100 said:
What model and year of iMac do you have and was it running Yosemite before your HDD failed?

IIRC Lion was the first OS to have a recovery partition, so with Snow Leopard, are you trying to unmount the start-up drive - which may explain your issue unless you are booting from an external drive.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your thoughts, it's a late 2009, was running El Capitan previously. I used an old Snow Leopard install as it was the only disc I had to install with.

Not booting from an external drive, all was running very shakily last night, and when tried to update to Yosemite today it's all gone a bit Pete Tong!

I'm trying to download Yosemite again to an external HD at present, maybe I can work with that once it's downloaded.
 
Thanks for the extra info. Kudos for taking one of those apart as they aren't the easiest. Did you replace the PRAM battery whilst you were in there, as it would be pretty old?

I suspect your iMac came with a special build of Snow Leopard on CD (until the next dot release) so a standard 'retail' 10.6.0 install could be one of many possible reasons for the shakiness.

I think you need Snow Leopard to be on 10.6.7 or 10.6.8 to upgrade to Yosemite but that may be just because that was when the App Store was first launched.

I am not aware of any issues jumping straight to Yosemite but your approach to create a bootable Yosemite USB stick or external drive is a logical next step and I would do the same in that situation.

If you are using the Snow Leopard install CD that came with the mac, you should also be able to boot from that and there is a key combination (can't remember it though) to launch Apple Hardware test to see if the cooked HD damaged anything else.
 
Thanks John, actually I don't find them too bad to take apart - as with most things in life, it's the putting back together I have the problem with! :D

No other work done, just a straight HD replacement... did it before about 18 months ago.

I'm trying to boot Yosemite from the external HD and now getting the message that my system needs an update to use! Seem to be going round in circles somewhat.... Lost most of the day, looking at a black bar and gray screen.
 
Have you tried installing the original software from the original install disk? You could then try a time machine install. However it may baulk if the OS is not similar, but worth a try. If you can get an OS onto the machine then at least you start trying to update. I also have a vague memory of an EFI update for the Mac happening at sometime,This may be why it wont boot from the external HD
 
Thanks for the info. Originally I managed to re-install SL on to the machine which was running. Having then tried to update to Yosemite from the app store, it appears to have gone into meltdown and almost appears to be stuck in a loop where it won't do much of anything at present. It won't upload from an external drive, won't log onto a user or do pretty much anything else.

It's currently sat in the corner staying well out of the way of my left foot waiting for a friend to have a look and see if they can solve for me :D
 
Thanks @neil_g i don't think I have, I may look again over the weekend.
 
Will it boot from the original SL disk?
 
Just been to the Apple web site to check . it depends on the age of your Mac if it will update. It needs to be a late 2009 model. These are ones with Quad Core processors. Here's a link. It only goes as far as Mavericks. But if you get that far you should get further
https://www.apple.com/uk/support/osx/upgrade/
 
It’s a late 2009, won’t boot up off install disk I just get a grey screen with a folder and flashing gun question mark.
 
Flashing ? indicates it can't find the disk with the OS . Strange it wont boot from the CD! I've located some info from Apple about this situation here's the link
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204323
Not sure if they will help much
 
Chappers said:
Flashing ? indicates it can't find the disk with the OS . Strange it wont boot from the CD! I've located some info from Apple about this situation here's the link
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204323
Not sure if they will help much
Click to expand...

Cheers fellah, that’s really good of you. (y) I’ve got a mate of mine hopefully looking at it this week so all good info to pass on to him.
 
I did a replacement of a hard drive on my old MacBook Pro and to re install the os I just booted it up holding down command I think go into disc utility format the drive and then download the os from the same menu
 
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