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iMac won't turn on

D

devianter

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 21, 2010
94
0
Hi, i've got a 24" first alluminum iMac (2007 i suppose) and it was just ok today.I was watching pulp fiction in Plex,but my iMac freezed..Tried to cmd Q ,cmd alt esc but nothing..so i pressed the power button for 5 sec to force shutdown.Well it begins here..After that when i'm turning on my imac,it just shows me a gray screen.If i press ALT to boot from XP or snow leo Dvd - i actually see my mouse pointer but there is no any boot option (no macintosh HD, no windows xp, no Snow leo live dvd)Nothing,just a grey screen and my mouse pointer which i can even move but its useless.I tried to reset Pram,SMU,i tried all boot option,cmd+v cmd+s ,target disk mode with my Mac Mini,i tried snow leo dvd,leo dvd,win xp ,win 7,win 7 64 bit dvd.Still nothing,just a grey screen.I unplugged the power chord from it for 10 minutes,20,30 minutes.Still a grey screen..I read some forums and it seems to be a hard drive failure,but when im turnin on my imac i can hear the hdd a bit (its really quite) like always.
Guys Please help me coz i live in a very small town here in italy,we dont have apple stores here so i'll have to go to verona (its kinda far from here ;( )
 
So you can't even boot from install disk? Try holding C while booting. You have to visit Apple Store if you can't boot from the disk as there is not much to do :(
 
Hey i pressed the C button on startup and now i see the folder with a question mark flashing on the screen .. :/ but i still can't boot with snow leo ,leo or tiger Boot Dvd to repair my disk :(
 
cmon.somebody.. just give me an advice..if its hdd failure,ill buy and hook up a new one but i wanna be sure .. coz if it was a hdd failure my Snow leo recovery dvd would start up right ? and it doesnt.i mean why the broken hdd may influence a dvd boot ? ...
 
devianter said:
cmon.somebody.. just give me an advice..if its hdd failure,ill buy and hook up a new one but i wanna be sure .. coz if it was a hdd failure my Snow leo recovery dvd would start up right ? and it doesnt.i mean why the broken hdd may influence a dvd boot ? ...
Click to expand...

Do you have Applecare? You should try contacting Apple with this issue. They may be able to walk you through some diagnostics over the telephone.
 
Have you tried booting into safe mode? To do so: press the S key as the machine is starting up; hold the S key down until you see the words "Safe Boot" on the screen. Safe Boot allows OSX to check the hard drive for problems and it disables a large number of programs which normally load during startup. For example, all kernel extensions and most login programs are turned off. Be aware that Safe Boot can take some time for the desktop to appear. Safe Boot should allow you to start up and then check the system out. Start with Login items and then move to fonts to try to spot the problem.
 
i've tried all i could tho i always thought u have to press shift to boot in safe mode.anyway NOTHING works and i always see a green display,the only thing that changes is that if i press N (net boot) i can see the flashing icon of netboot but obviously i dun have a server so it continue flashing forever


If i press C or D to start up from the dvd and hold it for 2-3 minutes it ejects my dvd .. :/
 
it definitely sounds like hdd failure.. being that you can't see Leopard nor the Windows partition..

it took me about half hour to replace my hdd and DOES NOT void your warranty if you have any, thou it sounds like you don't

Caviar Black it's a great option.. my imac sped up a lot and it has 5 year warranty..

only thing is.. be ready to clean your screen from dust after you replace your hdd for like 10 mins.. that thing is a dust magnet once you take the glass off...

this is the video that i used.. helped me a lot .. good luck

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YsCTNVEYt8
 
i haven't found a black caviar in the shops near to me,so tomorrow im goin to verona (where i bought my imac) ,hope they can repair/recover my data if its a hdd failure..will see..
 
devianter said:
i haven't found a black caviar in the shops near to me,so tomorrow im goin to verona (where i bought my imac) ,hope they can repair/recover my data if its a hdd failure..will see..
Click to expand...

Sometimes some stores have only the oem model which is:

WD1001FALS

Search for that, you might get lucky.. otherwise amazon or newegg if you're in the states..
 
nah i'm from italy :/
anyways today i took my iomega 500gb external hard disk, opened it and found that it's a sata disk,so tomorrow i will try to put it on my imac .. i'll update this thread
 
i called my friend so tomorrow i will do a replacement..will see if it will change smth
 
ok the news are : i opened my imac (it was pretty easy) , disconnected the HDD and connected it via Usb like an external hdd to my mac mini.It mounted the bootcamp partition ,but there were no macintosh hd.I went to disk utility ,all the devices and partitions was marked black (mac mini's,bootcamp and mini's dvd rom) but there was disk1s2 or smth like that marked grey,with no info about it ,just the partition's size.I then installed data rescue 3 and pressed Deep scan,now its scanning it ,it has already found many files like mp3 and stuff but i cant recover em till it finishes to scan,approx time - 80 hours.3 days,but i'll wait and see if it will recover all my important data.anyways i dun have another clean good HDD to insert in the imac,but i ordered it ,so i'm waiting tuesday-wednesday.At least i know that the problem was the HDD...

The question is : HDD seems to be ok,i mean its not damaged physically.
What do u think about it? OS X error? System files corrupted ? How ? .... Force Restart caused it or.. or what ? any thoughts ? :)

By the way when the data rescue 3 started to scan ,there was written 3000 hours approx.I opened live logs and all sectors were marked red with the "Slow read on this sector".after a 30 mins,it started to scan fast with no interruptions...System data corrupted ? ...

P.S.
Sorry for my english,i'm from italy but i hope you understand me.
 
OK.it has just finished to recover the files..and it actually has recovered all of my files.I'm so happy :D
Data Rescue 3 is an excellent software :D
Wednesday i'm going to buy a seagate 1.5tb disk and put it in my imac..
Still using an ubuntu notebook :)
 
sounds odd to me as well,anyway i recovored my files and formatted it.and it works ..i think i'll use it like external usb disk for some movies and tvshows ;/
after all , it was a mac os x error... or crash.dunno.but the disk is not damaged at all :/
 
devianter said:
sounds odd to me as well,anyway i recovored my files and formatted it.and it works ..i think i'll use it like external usb disk for some movies and tvshows ;/
after all , it was a mac os x error... or crash.dunno.but the disk is not damaged at all :/
Click to expand...

I'm glad you recovered your stuff.. a big error from OS-X cannot be ruled out but is sort of unlikely.. i'll tell you what thou.. i repair computers every now and then and when an hdd is bad sometimes you format it and it works but it doesn't take long to go bad again..

if i were you i would not put any very important files in there.. with the prices of hdds now a days i would just throw it aways.. it's too risky to keep a disk that has already fail as a back up.. not worth it..

told u it was the hdd thou.. glad you fixed your problem
 
right..i was thinkin' if it were possible that there is a little scratch on the disk inside... that could be a cause of failing .. coz when data rescue was scanning the disk there were bad "red" sectors and the scan was very slow.. few bad sectors.though..but who knows.. i think its better to let it go and buy a new good firewire800 disk and use it with time machine.i will not survive anymore if i'll lose my data again.:D

P.s
THX everyone for helping me :)
 
put the wd1001fals .. kinda noisy,but i will play with AAC after ,anyways seems to be ok,i'm copying my files now and the temperature is 47C so i think it will be all right
 
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