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iMac shuts down on start up after updates installed.

A

Arty Mac

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 5, 2009
8
0
Hi,
Having some serious issues here!

Also worth pointing out that I am not hugely computer literate.

After downloading 2 updates this evening ( not sure what they were, just did it through software update) I followed the prompt to restart my iMac. It then got stuck on the grey apple logo screen with the spinning grey/black wheel. Making no noise at all, for well over 30 mins. I then forced in to shut down by holding the power button, which it did so.

On powering back up, I again got the grey apple screen with the spinning wheel, but also a long oval bar which started to fill, then reset itself, before powering my iMac off completely.

The problem keeps happening. I have read several other help topics that almost match this, and followed advice. I have rest the PRAM, and tried staing in safe mode.

When following the track of safe mode a message appears in the text saying

"Incorrect block count ...should be 8 not 1"
And
"Macintosh HD could not be repaired "

Amongst much other text, and then turns off.

Is this as bad as it seems..?

I am running Snow Leopard on a 4 year old iMac (much more than that I can't say without turning it on....sorry)

All help gratefully received. Thanks.
 
simsaladimbamba said:
Have you tried repairing the Macintosh HD with Disk Utility from the Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Upgrade DVD?

Have you tried any of these steps?

Click to expand...

I have tried some of these, but not all. I will do so tomorrow.

Also, I do not have the Snow Leopard disc, only 10.5. Will starting up of these ( If in fact I can without it shutting down) make a difference?

Thanks for the help thus far.
 
Well, I hate to tell you this, Arty, but even the "best" hard disks don't typically make it seven to ten years anymore. Some fail within first months of use. Some fail after the first year. The biggest and most reliable failure trend, however, starts after the third year of use. It's true that there might be nothing physically wrong with the hard disk. All I'm saying is you have to expect these things because modern electronics are designed to prematurely fail so you have to buy a replacement in a strategy known as planned obsolescence. My advice would be for you to back up this hard disk (if you have not already done so), take the iMac to an AASP and have the hard disk replaced with a new one, copy your data over after reinstalling the OS and don't assume in the future that the quality of hard disks used today is good enough for you to skirt by without making regular backups.
 
Mactrillionaire said:
...The biggest and most reliable failure trend, however, starts after the third year of use...
Click to expand...

Oh how true! Thanks for the advice. After having been bitten in the past, thankfully I had a Time Capsule so was able to do a complete restore of all data. Now, what do we think the failure rates on those are???

simsaladimbamba thanks to you for your advice. It was indeed the hard drive that had failed. Some nice Apple bloke fixed it all for me; legend!
 
Arty Mac said:
Oh how true! Thanks for the advice. After having been bitten in the past, thankfully I had a Time Capsule so was able to do a complete restore of all data. Now, what do we think the failure rates on those are???

simsaladimbamba thanks to you for your advice. It was indeed the hard drive that had failed. Some nice Apple bloke fixed it all for me; legend!
Click to expand...
Well, the Time Capsules have improved their reliability. The main issue they had was a design problem that has since been fixed and wasn't related to the reliability of the hard disk itself (i.e., so even if it broke, you could typically take it apart and find that the hard disk inside still had recoverable data).

Though, in all seriousness, the main issue I have with Time Capsule is that it is too slow. I prefer to just do backups over a SATA connection. Even that takes a long time, but it takes hours rather than days via Time Capsule.
 
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