Is my iMac completely screwed?

[kschendel]

Whoa. How is it mounted if it's damaged/erased? This is weird. I think maybe I'm not fully understanding what is going on here. What does diskutil info disk0 tell you?

Ok, try: umount /dev/disk0
first. You might need a sudo on that. (In fact you might need a sudo for the diskutil eraseDisk. I'm more used to partitioning command line stuff in linux and solaris than os x.) If umount doesn't do it, try diskutil umount disk0.

 

[clauditorium]

Ok, update. I somehow managed to do the partitioning, and then partitioning back into one partition.

EDIT:
Then I tried to reinstall the OS. It seemed to go fine at first. Then it said there were 16 minutes left, but it took hours to get to zero. (see attached image) Then the counter went away and the screen just stayed exactly the same for a couple more hours until I finally just turned it off.

Maybe it's related to the graphics card being broken?

Whoa. How is it mounted if it's damaged/erased? This is weird. I think maybe I'm not fully understanding what is going on here. What does diskutil info disk0 tell you?

Ok, try: umount /dev/disk0
first. You might need a sudo on that. (In fact you might need a sudo for the diskutil eraseDisk. I'm more used to partitioning command line stuff in linux and solaris than os x.) If umount doesn't do it, try diskutil umount disk0.

 

[Fishrrman]

If you -know- that the graphics are broken, and you've made up your mind to get something newer, I wouldn't waste any more time with it.

Either put it in the attic, or sell it "for parts"...

 

[DeltaMac]

I suspect that your hard drive is on its last legs, close to failing completely.
If you don't want to replace with a good hard drive (and why should you, with a failed graphics chip?)
Then, just junk it, or sell it for parts, or find someone who wants a new hobby, etc.

 

[kschendel]

I believe the OP already intends to sell it for parts, and I'm speculating that he wants to be able to specify what works and what doesn't. Anyway, it's quite possible that the install will run much longer than expected, since it's using a slow USB port. If the install really doesn't ever complete, I'd boot back to the recovery / installer disk, and run a Disk Utility verify on the internal hard disk. It may or may not be bootable but at least it should verify OK (have a valid filesystem on it). If not, it's probably dead or close to it. If it verifies then I'd guess that it's probably sort-of OK and the broken graphics is preventing the full install somehow.

 

[clauditorium]

Thanks for spending time helping me.

What I was hoping to accomplish was to make the computer able to start, even if it's just in safe mode. But it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

I believe the OP already intends to sell it for parts, and I'm speculating that he wants to be able to specify what works and what doesn't. Anyway, it's quite possible that the install will run much longer than expected, since it's using a slow USB port. If the install really doesn't ever complete, I'd boot back to the recovery / installer disk, and run a Disk Utility verify on the internal hard disk. It may or may not be bootable but at least it should verify OK (have a valid filesystem on it). If not, it's probably dead or close to it. If it verifies then I'd guess that it's probably sort-of OK and the broken graphics is preventing the full install somehow.