I have a 2.0GHz g5 iMac with iSight, it's been great until I moved last. Since then when I go to boot it up it doesn't go past the apple screen shows it's attempting load further but never does. The hard drive does make some really odd sounds now thus why I'm leaning towards a junk drive. Since I DID back up my mac regularly I'm not to heartbroken that it might need a new one since I would love to jump up to a 1tb drive anyway. Anyone think it could be something else however?
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iMac w/ bad hard drive?
- Thread starter abstruse
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new hard drive is in, Mac OS is in... it just keeps blinking a folder with a ? mark in it.
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Many ways..
Reboot and hold down the mouse key. That will force an attempted eject.
Reboot and hold down Option key, when you are able, hit the eject key on the keyboard.
Is it stuck stuck? Then you're going to have to get physical with the drive.
Reboot and hold down the mouse key. That will force an attempted eject.
Reboot and hold down Option key, when you are able, hit the eject key on the keyboard.
Is it stuck stuck? Then you're going to have to get physical with the drive.
I negotiated with my cd drive and it's out now. However, now I'm a little more nervous. I have a folder with a ? mark in it with no response when I put mac OSX in it. perhaps corrupt NVRAM?
Wow... this is really weird because my roommate's Intel iMac 20" (model 4,1) has just started doing the exact same thing! Started up about 2 days ago. I was getting ready to purchase a replacement HD for him and just change it out... but now I'm wondering if something else is up. SAME EXACT BEHAVIOR!! Same clattering HD sound on the original 250 Gb Western Digital drive.
He can get his to boot if he power cycles it a few times. Wonder if it's a failing power supply rail???
What is your model identifier number?
Keep us posted.
Allen
Are you saying this is a known issue? Can you maybe pass along some wisdom to us plebians?
Um no. I was simply saying that when power supplies fail that's how they tend to act. A long shot could be the logic board, but 95% it's just the power supply.
I'm sure you can find a used one and sneak it it cheap; hopefully run the iMac 1-2 more years.
It's certainly not the ram or harddrive. So your left with a bad button, logic board or power supply
I tend to agree... I think what makes us all first jump on the harddrive bandwagon is when we see the "missing system" icon.
And it's worth noting that here, we've had some nasty power outages the last few days too. Maybe a surge shorted a cap in the PS. Are the PS caps in these 4,1 Intel iMacs known to be a weak link? Ever changed them out? I've done this many times on various computers and displays but never seen an iMac PS. Guess I'll take a look.
Thanks for the help. Didn't mean to be overly snarky.