27" iMac late 2010 - will not allow os reinstall

[Lynsey Lewis]

Good Day, I have a 27" iMac 11,3 Model A1312 born in Dec. of 2010. All of a sudden it froze, I rebooted it and nothing, not even a spinning icon, nor beach ball. I tried various keystrokes to reboot to Safe Mode, etc and nothing. I put the OS DVD in, ended up erasing and reformatting and partitioning. The install stops saying 33 minutes left and stays there. Nothing I do will convince it to install.
I am asking for learned opinions and to possibly agree with my diagnosis of a dead hard drive. My background is a MCSE in old Windows so I am also old and little out of my element here. Thank you all. Lynsey

 

[Juicy Box]

It is probably a failing HDD.

Try installing the OS on an external drive and see if you have problems.

 

[Lynsey Lewis]

Thank you, Vertical Smile! I am glad I am on the right track. I will try your suggestion. As I have never attempted this maneuver, I am assuming I can plug in a USB hard drive and see if it is recognized and proceed from there! If I am in error, just holler at me. Thanks again. Lynsey

 

[Juicy Box]

As I have never attempted this maneuver, I am assuming I can plug in a USB hard drive and see if it is recognized and proceed from there!

You can use a USB, FireWire, or Thunderbolt drive as an external boot drive. You can even use most Thumb Drives and SD cards on the SD Card Slot.

Just make sure it is formatted correctly. You can find this info out with a search or just ask here if you cannot figure it out.
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EDIT:

Thunderbolt drive

Actually, I was thinking you had a Mid-2011. But I re-read your post and see you have the 2010 which did not have TB. All the other methods mentioned would work though.

 

[Lynsey Lewis]

Oh, thank you for the update. The external hd was not recognized. I will try the alternatives. As for formatting, I used the extended journaled for the original attempt. I will research the proper formatting for thumb drive. I have some 8GB ones around if those will work.

 

[Fishrrman]

"The external hd was not recognized."

Let's stop right there for a moment.
How about telling us WHICH VERSION of the OS you're trying to install?
This is important because it determines HOW you format the external drive.

Another question:
Can you get booted to "internet recovery" (that's different than "the recovery partition").
Command-OPTION-R at boot.
You'll need a wifi password if you're using wifi.

WARNING: Not all Macs from 2010 could do internet recovery. You have to try it with yours to see if it works.

 

[Lynsey Lewis]

"The external hd was not recognized."

Let's stop right there for a moment.
How about telling us WHICH VERSION of the OS you're trying to install?
This is important because it determines HOW you format the external drive.

Another question:
Can you get booted to "internet recovery" (that's different than "the recovery partition").
Command-OPTION-R at boot.
You'll need a wifi password if you're using wifi.

WARNING: Not all Macs from 2010 could do internet recovery. You have to try it with yours to see if it works.

Hello, I have the original DVD for Snow Leopard. I did boot to internet recovery. It tries, the globe spins but makes no advancing visible progress. I will let it run for a while before calling it a failure.

In the meantime, I put the OS DVD onto a flash drive. Inserted it and did boot from it. I will use it when I get the new hard drive.

Thanks so much!