2012 iMac not booting up...

[Post Guy]

Have booted into recover mode and done first aid to the drive and still repeats the same thing over and over. Can't seem to boot into safe mode.

Here's a picture of the screen. Can anyone help? Next step is to do full reinstall, but really hoping I don't have to do that as I've got some files on there I just didn't back up the last week.

 

[keysofanxiety]

Have booted into recover mode and done first aid to the drive and still repeats the same thing over and over. Can't seem to boot into safe mode.

Here's a picture of the screen. Can anyone help? Next step is to do full reinstall, but really hoping I don't have to do that as I've got some files on there I just didn't back up the last week.

Urrgh it's always tricky with a kernel panic before booting into OS, as it could be graphics, RAM, or even the HDD ... Is there an Apple Store local to you, or an Apple Repair Centre? Honestly it may be best to take it to a specialist for assessment.

If not, there are a few things you can try:

- Boot into recovery mode (CMD+R on startup). Have an external HDD or pendrive attached, and format this through Disk Utility. Select 'reinstall OS X' and set that to the external drive. That at least will give you a diagnostics HDD.

Now, if it either:

a) Begins downloading/installing OS X to the external drive, but never seems to complete the installation, it's likely not the HDD, and I suspect the issue would be RAM

b) If it installs OS X to the external drive without an issue, but when trying to boot into that external OS (hold Alt on startup) and it kernel panics as it currently is, I'd suspect GPU

c) Downloads/installs OS X to external drive without an issue, and boots into external OS without issue, it may be HDD.

Regardless, if it installs/boots into an external OS, please quote this as there are some additional diagnostics we can run.

Overall though, I still would suggest taking to an Apple Store if it's not too inconvenient.

 

[Post Guy]

Urrgh it's always tricky with a kernel panic before booting into OS, as it could be graphics, RAM, or even the HDD ... Is there an Apple Store local to you, or an Apple Repair Centre? Honestly it may be best to take it to a specialist for assessment.

If not, there are a few things you can try:

- Boot into recovery mode (CMD+R on startup). Have an external HDD or pendrive attached, and format this through Disk Utility. Select 'reinstall OS X' and set that to the external drive. That at least will give you a diagnostics HDD.

Now, if it either:

a) Begins downloading/installing OS X to the external drive, but never seems to complete the installation, it's likely not the HDD, and I suspect the issue would be RAM

b) If it installs OS X to the external drive without an issue, but when trying to boot into that external OS (hold Alt on startup) and it kernel panics as it currently is, I'd suspect GPU

c) Downloads/installs OS X to external drive without an issue, and boots into external OS without issue, it may be HDD.

Regardless, if it installs/boots into an external OS, please quote this as there are some additional diagnostics we can run.

Overall though, I still would suggest taking to an Apple Store if it's not too inconvenient.

I've just tried re-installing OSX from recovery mode. It's gone to the same kernal panic.

Now trying to install onto an external HDD.

 

[Fishrrman]

Here's one more example of why one should ALWAYS have an external fully-bootable (that means "bootable to the finder") drive close-at-hand ...

 

[Post Guy]

Here's one more example of why one should ALWAYS have an external fully-bootable (that means "bootable to the finder") drive close-at-hand ...

I've managed to install OS onto an external drive. Just backing up files now as I can access everything on the internal drive fine it seems.

Hopefully I'll be able to fix the internal drive somehow and not have to fork out replacing it. An SSD will be going in if that's the case.
[doublepost=1464101219][/doublepost]What diagnostics can I run now I've got an OS in front of me?

 

[circatee]

I wonder if this will help...

https://etrecheck.com/#about