So I just wanted put this out there for some fresh eyes to see if there is something I am missing before I throw in the towel.
A week and a half ago, my late 2007 iMac start having some problems. I believe it initially froze while playing music in iTunes. I did a restart (holding power button) and it booted up ok. I opened iTunes back up and got the "rebuilding iTunes Library" bar which takes a while. Eventually the screen saver came on, and it froze again. Another restart. Then I guess my wife started watching a movie and it froze again. I restarted and the computer and restarted iTunes. This time it froze during the "rebuilding iTunes Library" process. I restarted again. This time it would get about 1/3 through the boot progress bar and go to a white screen. The hard drive continues making disk access noise for a little while and the cursor comes up and I can move it with the mouse. But the screen stays blank. After a while the display will sleep and I can wake it back up, but still just the blank white screen.
I try resetting the NVRAM and the SMC but nothing changes. I boot into Recovery and check the disk and I get an error that says I need to reformat and restore from backup. I tried just reformatting the partition with the OS, but Disk Utility says it can't mount the partition. So I reformat the whole drive and restore from Time Machine, choosing a restore point approximately 24 hours before I started having problems. When I reboot I get the same white screen. This time I can boot into Safe Mode though. In Safe Mode, as it logs in and builds the desktop, the screen refreshes very slowly with blocks of white moving up the screen as it renders the desktop. Other than that Safe Mode seems fine. I can access files and run programs.
I try Recovery again and repair permissions and verify the disk. There were a lot of permission errors so I run that twice. Disk checks out OK.
Ran the Apple Hardware Test (quick version) and that comes back OK.
But I can still only boot into Safe Mode. I go in and deactivate licensed software, deauthorize the computer from iTunes since I am going to try a fresh install at this point.
Back in to Recovery and select Reinstall OSX. The installer runs but it still gets stuck at the white screen about 1/3 through the boot progress bar.
So now I try a fresh install on an external drive. Same thing happens, the initial part of the install goes fine, but it still won't get past the blank white screen when it starts up. I never got to the point in the install to where you set up OSX for the first time. I can hear disk access for a while, but it never loads the desktop.
So, am I missing anything? I did try booting in Verbose Mode once and I did see a few errors, but the text moves quick and I wasn't familiar enough with what to look for to catch what they were. The result was the same though - blank white screen.
The iMac is obviously very old, and I was expecting to have to replace it soon anyway. But, if there is some step I am missing, I will try to get it going.
Thanks for reading.
A week and a half ago, my late 2007 iMac start having some problems. I believe it initially froze while playing music in iTunes. I did a restart (holding power button) and it booted up ok. I opened iTunes back up and got the "rebuilding iTunes Library" bar which takes a while. Eventually the screen saver came on, and it froze again. Another restart. Then I guess my wife started watching a movie and it froze again. I restarted and the computer and restarted iTunes. This time it froze during the "rebuilding iTunes Library" process. I restarted again. This time it would get about 1/3 through the boot progress bar and go to a white screen. The hard drive continues making disk access noise for a little while and the cursor comes up and I can move it with the mouse. But the screen stays blank. After a while the display will sleep and I can wake it back up, but still just the blank white screen.
I try resetting the NVRAM and the SMC but nothing changes. I boot into Recovery and check the disk and I get an error that says I need to reformat and restore from backup. I tried just reformatting the partition with the OS, but Disk Utility says it can't mount the partition. So I reformat the whole drive and restore from Time Machine, choosing a restore point approximately 24 hours before I started having problems. When I reboot I get the same white screen. This time I can boot into Safe Mode though. In Safe Mode, as it logs in and builds the desktop, the screen refreshes very slowly with blocks of white moving up the screen as it renders the desktop. Other than that Safe Mode seems fine. I can access files and run programs.
I try Recovery again and repair permissions and verify the disk. There were a lot of permission errors so I run that twice. Disk checks out OK.
Ran the Apple Hardware Test (quick version) and that comes back OK.
But I can still only boot into Safe Mode. I go in and deactivate licensed software, deauthorize the computer from iTunes since I am going to try a fresh install at this point.
Back in to Recovery and select Reinstall OSX. The installer runs but it still gets stuck at the white screen about 1/3 through the boot progress bar.
So now I try a fresh install on an external drive. Same thing happens, the initial part of the install goes fine, but it still won't get past the blank white screen when it starts up. I never got to the point in the install to where you set up OSX for the first time. I can hear disk access for a while, but it never loads the desktop.
So, am I missing anything? I did try booting in Verbose Mode once and I did see a few errors, but the text moves quick and I wasn't familiar enough with what to look for to catch what they were. The result was the same though - blank white screen.
The iMac is obviously very old, and I was expecting to have to replace it soon anyway. But, if there is some step I am missing, I will try to get it going.
Thanks for reading.
