24" iMac - Wont boot from HD or disc... Help!

Hi guys,
Just been working on iMac, forget the exact spec but it's a 24" Intel 2.something Core 2 Duo or whatever it is, 4gb DDR2 RAM, gotta be about 2 years old to the day and after my last 2 Macs have lasted forever, never developing a fault, I didn't take out Applecare... Perhaps I had a bit too much faith...
As I say, just working away and all of a sudden, upon putting a video in Quicktime to full screen, the whole image has kinda of condensed itself into the top 20% of the screen and started slightly flickering the image. I've tried quitting some of the programmes, but neither the mouse nor leyboard have been responding so I've just had to turn the computer off.
I've gone to turn it back on, and after about 30 seconds, it's got as far as the grey screen but then the little spinning progress indicator pauses and it does nothing else.
I've reset the PRAM and that made it take longer before it froze but ultimately did nothing.
I've now tried getting it to boot from the Snow Leopard disc but this does the something, until after about 3 - 5 minutes, the screen goes all pshychedlic, like looking at an old school TV really close...
So looking for any suggestions on other things to try before I have to take to my local store... Any hazard a guess at what may be up with it?
I've got a back up the whole computer but I don't think this is a software problem, I'm assuming it's going to be a hardware one?
Any help at all would be much appreciated!

Ok, tried Safe Mode and that wont boot either. Saw a little progress bar on the grey screen though which made a change, but ultimately, it crashed once that had disappeared.
I've just noticed that at the point when the progress wheel stops spinning, a pattern of dead pixels appears across the screen that aren't there when the progress wheel is spinning.
The more I talk to people about this, the more graphics card seems to come back as the likely culprit, based on the fact that:
- it started by me putting a video to full screen
- the fact the display went weird when it first happened and also it plays up after it crashes with the psychedelic colours
- it wont boot from HD, disc or now in safe mode either, however it does run AHT fine.
- I've hoovered out the vents on the iMac and somehow it seems slower than it was before (bit odd)
- the dead pixel thing mentioned above
So now thinking it may be time to get a new graphics card?
Reckon this is likely, even though the AHT hasn't picked up any problems? As mentioned earlier, I'm not too concerned about it would seem it doesn't particularly test the graphics card too much, so all just seems to point towards it.
Anything else that I could do to single this out as the likely culprit?
Guess this is a chance to upgrade!

Similar Messages

  • Imac wont boot from cd, Can anyone help me Please

    Hello, I just bought my first mac from a co-worker. it didnt have a hard drive so i threw a spare one i had in. I tried holding c when booting, and all i get is the little smile face and the ? on a folder. At first when i booted the computer it didnt make any sounds. Then i found that the apple key option pr resets something. So i tried that. It now plays sound when i first boot up. But still can't get into the cd. I also tried the optionapple+fO. It came up with a screen and i did the reset-nram. but it couldnt find the command reset. Im so lost here. Im hoping i didnt waste my money. Any help here would be great. But please remember that i no NOTHING about macs. So please explain what you need me to do. Thanks alot
    Also let me know if you need more information

    As Robert suggested, the responders here will need to know what model of iMac you have, most importantly whether it is a slot load CD, or one of the older tray load models. The tray load ones have the slide that extends. The slot loaders suck 'em in.
    If the CD drive is functioning, your Mac will boot from your original install CDs, or a "Universal" OS9 (White background, Orange "9"). Once booted from the CD, open the "Utilities" folder, choose the Drive Setup utility, and initialize, or partition and initialize the drive. (Post back here if you need help on that step)
    If the CD drive doesn't work, try cleaning it with one of the commercial cleaning disks. If that doesn't work, they are replacable using a takeapart like iMac takeapart - link. Replacements are available on eBay.
    Remember to fold the front foot forward once you start using the iMac. 350MHZ and above have no fan and are convection cooled. The foot in the forward position allows better cooling.
    Good luck, and ... take your time. These are great little machines!
    David

  • IMac wont boot from CD

    I am selling my iMac so want to reformat the HD and do a fresh install of Leopard.
    When I try to boot from the system CD I get the grey screen, I hear the CD Drive reading the disk, then the computer reboots. The same thing happens every time no matter how I try to boot from the CD. When I eject the CD, or boot from HDD, it loads the OS fine. It just wont boot from the CD.
    I have tried:
    Booting from CD by holding the C key during startup
    Booting from CD using Startup Disk in System Preferences
    Installing OS from the 'Install Mac OS X' application on the disc
    Holding the option key during startup and selecting the CD drive
    Resetting the NVRAM
    Verifying the HD in disk utility
    Verifying the CD in disk utility
    Verifying and repairing HD disk permissions in disk utility
    Running the install on my MacBook to check the CD (booted to the CD and started install process fine)
    I have searched for previous discussions that reference this issue but could find none with this specific problem. The CD drive reads other media fine so I don't think it's a hardware issue.
    Any help would be much appreciated.

    Clean the disk?
    Dirty lense?
    The bottom of the disk must be free of scratches and especially human fingerprints which the oils can trasfer insdie the machine.
    Use a bit of rubbing alcohol on a very soft clean cloth and polish ot a shine before using the optical drive.
    Order a replacement disk from Apple, buy jewel cases that suspend your disk, the plasic/paper sleeves Apple provides aren't good.

  • Imac wont boot from DVD

    just got my imac back after hard drive replacement, but it will not boot from the dvd? and now I can't get the dvd out?

    Zap the PRAM and Reset the SMC, then try again.
    As for the stuck disc, this is the simplest, from LousyFool's link, if restarting, holding down the mouse doesn't do the tridk.
    Open Terminal and type "drutil tray eject" to eject the disc/tray, and "drutil tray close" to close the tray. If you have an external drive, e.g. the MacBook Air Superdrive, use "drutil eject external".

  • G5 wont boot from 10.5 disc

    my g5 will not boot from a borrowed 10.5 disc
    its 2nd hand and worked perfectly for quite a while.
    after start up one morning it had reverted back to 10.3.9---and the 2nd hard drive had died---wierd thing was that the osx was on the 1st drive--not the 2nd.
    when i tried to update to 10.5 from a disc it allowed me to select language--then a window said that it could not load from this disc.
    is there a specific type of disc i need to upgrade to 10.5.8?
    cheers

    Furthermore, since you ask about 10.5.8, the retail discs for 10.5 only were available up to 10.5.6. You can upgrade to 10.5.8 using the combo update once you have the correct disk that looks like what I show above:
    http://support.apple.com/downloads/MacOS_X_10_5_8_ComboUpdate
    Use my directions below*:
    http://www.macmaps.com/upgradefaq.html
    - * Links to my pages may give me compensation.

  • My imac wont boot from the install disk

    My IMAC will not boot from the install disk.

    Hello, your installation disk is running under OSX??? If no the media has a problem!!!
    1. Restart your mac and hold the alt (option key) to select media to install.
    2. Restart you mac and hold the "c" key to boot.
    an other solution is to make a partition on the hard drive and put a restore image of the Mac os X Installation dvd inside it then Restart your mac nad hold the "option" key and you will see the partition with mac os x installation and you can make a new installation from there.

  • PB won't boot from drive or disc: HELP!

    I can turn the machine on with the power button, and the screen displays the grey background with Apple logo, and the spinning barred circle underneath. The circle just spins and spins. Also, the machine is suddenly very loud--fan or drive making a clattering sound.
    I have tried to boot from the Hardware Test disc. I could get to the Open Firmware screen but when I try the "mac-boot" command, I get the following error message: "Invalid memory access." Also, the "eject" command would not open the drive device (though the disc did eject when I powered down).
    Also tried to boot from the Software Install disc. I can hear the drive reading the disc, but once the spinning circle comes up nothing else happens.
    Now I cannot eject the Software Install disc.
    Next steps? All help appreciated!!

    Virginia:
    Welcome to Apple Discussions.
    Let me see if I got this right.
    1. You can't boot normally from the internal HDD.
    2. You can boot from the Hardware Test disk, but no "Mac-boot"
    3. You can't install from the Install Disk.
    First try resetting the PRAM (Hit start button while holding down CommandOption+PR) and let it chime at least three times. Then release and see if it boots.
    If it won't boot restart and when it gets stuck in the Apple Logo grey screen do a hard reset (hold down the Power button for 10 seconds or so until it goes off) then try restarting.
    If you manage to get it to boot Open Disk Utility (Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility) select your HDD and run Repair Disk.
    Report back on any progress of lack of it.

  • Z87-GD65 wont boot from any drive, please help!

    I desperately need your help on this issue. And thanks in advance for any answer!
    I have a brand new Z87-GD65 Mainboard.
    When I select my boot device in BIOS all I get is: "Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key"
    In BIOS I can find all my hardware (CPU, Drives, HDDs, DVD,... RAM) everything is shown correctly. Nothing missing there, all parts shown by correct values.
    I cant boot through my DVD Drive or external USB Drive (on both I have Windows 7 which I want to install on my new system). The Windows DVD is also working properly, I checked it on my old PC.
    No matter what Boot priority/device I choose (I think Ive tried them all by now) "Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key" is what I get after "save & reboot".
    My BIOS Version is E7845IMS V1.8.
    Any suggestions, what am I missing?
    thank you very much for any help!

    Quote from: Jimmy_123 on 09-May-14, 01:26:52
    Ok, thanks for your help, I found the problem!
    It was my DVD Rom Drive that could not read the DVD!!!!
    What I Still dont understand is that it also didnt boot from a bootable HD through USB.
    thanks for your help!
    Glad you got it working....probably the controller got confused from the faulty DVD rom....

  • Macbook Wont boot from hard drive. Help??

    I was typing on my Macbook and the whole computer just froze with the rainbow wheel. So i hold down the power button to force a shut down. When i try to boot it back up it game me a Apple logo but then turn into a X. I try to turn it on holding down the Option key and only the recovery HD came up. Then i try to install Osx onto the Hard drive and it wont recognize it. Then i went to disk utility and The HD is Grey out then i Try Repair Disk but it doesnt work and gives me errors. Then i plug in a different Hard Drive and it Boot Up fine so i know its not the computer its the hard drive issue. Btw i used a software to recover the files and everthing showed up so the content is still there but the software cost $99 to use and im not paying that much. Does anyone know how to solve this Issue? I have important files on it. If the hard drive is dead then is there any free software that i can use to recover the files?

    Since you were able to read at least some of the files, I'm thinking you may have an issue with the SATA cable, which is fairly common. The easy test is to pull the hard drive and put it in an external enclosure. If it works, the SATA cable is probably the issue.
    Is it a 13 or 15 inch?

  • My imac has a grey screen wont boot from hhd pls help

    hello,
    I have an imac from late 2008 with snow leopard. Late saturday evening 24 Mar I had powered
    down my imac then later turned it on. Now only a grey screen appears, nothing more. If I leave
    the imac on a folder with a question mark appears and blinks.
    I have tried the following to fix the problem and ALL HAVE FAILED:
    they are:
    1. resetting the pram. it doesnt work.
    2. booting from the installation cd. The imac doesn't even READ the cd, the screen remains grey and doesn't
    read the cd at all.
    3. booting in the safe mode. nothing happens, the screen remains grey.
    4. booting in apple hardware test mode: nothing happens screen remains grey.
    5. boot with option key pressed, so as to choose mac HD or my windows partition. nothing
    happens, the screen remains grey.
    All of these have failed to fix the problem.
    When I power on my imac I heard the chord, a slight spin of the HHD I'm sure that's what it is,
    and then nothing.grey screen.
    I have tried unpluggling the power cord for 15 seconds, reconnecting it, waitiing five seconds
    and then powering up the imac. it doesn't do any good.
    any help anyone can provide will be appreciated.
    do you think it is a hard drive error or failure? 
    why doesn't it read or boot from the instllation CD??  and yes I am using the correct disk.
    thanks folks for yr help and opinions.
    Alfonso

    Ok. so you stated the screen remains gray. Is it just plain gray? Does it have a folder with a question mark on it? Do you see the little pin wheel thingy?
    You also stated you can't boot from the install disc. Turn the machine on and put the disc in the drive. Shut the machine down by holding down the start button for five seconds or so and wait a further 20 seconds. Restart the machine and hold down the 'C' key before the chime and keep holding it down until the machine boots form the disc. It can take up to three minutes to boot from the disc. Once it has booted from the disc select the language and go to the Utilities menu at the top and run the disc repair utility.
    The hardware test is built in and should work regardless. Turn the machine on and hold down the 'D' key before the chime and keep holding it down until the hardware test starts.
    I fear you have not given enough time or used the correct procedure to do the tests you state you have done.

  • Wont boot from cd???

    I have a slot-loading iMac that wont boot from a CD.
    Does anyone know why? I have tried holding C and choosing the CD as a start-up disk but it doesnt work. The CD i am trying to start-up on is the Mac OS 9 CD.
    Can anyone help??
    Thanks Daniel.

    Did you have any luck on this?
    I am having the same quandry. I have a slot-loading 450MHZ imac which I purchased used with 10.2 installled on it. When I tried to upgrade to 10.3 using my black retail CD I own I was told I needed to upgrade the firmware. Then I discovered that Classic had been deleted from this computer, so had no way to boot in 9.2.2 to install the Firmware update....so I figured I would have to start from scratch from my white 9.0 retail CD and do the upgrades to 9.2.2, but it wouldn't boot from the white CD.
    Then I followed instructions I found here and used my 10.3 disc to access Disk Utility and reformatted the HD with the OS 9 Drivers (losing the 10.2 install it had in the process), and reset the PRAM twice.
    So now I just get a gray screen with the flashing Question Mark in a folder. I have tried an external CD drive to confirm it's not a problem with the optical drive and have booted from the OS 9 CD on another slot-loading imac to confirm it's not a problem with the Disk. I have a 9.0 CD and a 10.3 CD but nothing in between.
    Still no luck...

  • IMac Wont Boot Question.I cant find an answer.

    Ok Heres the story.
    I have an iMac 20" display Intel Core Duo.
    I came home yesterday and it was locked up.. I had to turn it off manually.
    When it rebooted it started up but was stuck with a folder with a "?" on it.
    I know it has to be the HDD.
    I booted it from the snow leopard DVD and went into disk utlilty and repaired and verified the disk. The HDD shoes up in disk utility with the Macintosh Partition.After I repaired it it still does not appear as an option to st it as a start up disc.. I dont think the HDD is bad.. But I am not an expert
    To be honest I dont care about the iMac I just want the data. I back up but I did not do one in a month or so and there are some things I want. If I removed the HDD and plugged into another mac would I be able to get the data off? I have one of those sata to USB adapters..
    Any help would be appreciated let me know if you have any ideas

    Do you know why it shows up in Disk Utilty but it wont boot from it?
    Because the computer can't find a bootable OS on it. This is much more complicated than just seeing the drive.
    (57561)

  • My imac wont boot  and a small square shows up next to the cursor

    Hi
    my imac wont boot and a small square shows up next to the cursor. I can open in safe mode. I have reinstalled the OSX, but can't boot from back-up.
    Any advice?

    OK.....I figured it out.....after reading endless threads on the cursor issue, I found out that apple calls the cursor a MOUSE POINTER..! and the square that follows it a 'corruption'...GO FIGURE!
    Anyway, this is what I did.
    I tried reinstalling Mountain Lion....online install. It didn't resolve the issue. Same problems
    Then, I tried reinstalling from the original DVD install disc....this wasn't possible (no access sign over install icon).
    So I finally erased my hard drive (after rebooting command - r), BUT NOT BEFORE BACKING UP MY FILES, APPLICATIONS, SETTINGS and any other important data!!!!!!!
    Then started up command R
    Then reinstalled Mountain Lion online
    My iMac started up like it does when you install 'out of the box'...follow the instructions....
    my cursor, or mouse pointer is now free of it's 'corruption', and boots up just fine!
    Hope this helps anyone out there with the same issue

  • Can't boot from OSX Install disc.

    Hello,
    I am trying to restore my iMac from a Time MAchine backup and to do that I remembered that I had to boot off of the OSX install disk and choose Disk Utility. I thought that restoring from timeMAchine would be the hard and long part, but I am having trouble booting off of the OSX disc.
    1.) I popped it into my iMac and it mounts and loads. Its runs fine so I know there is nothing wrong with the disc.
    2.) I restarted my iMac and held C.
    3.) The grey screen appeard and then the Apple logo and then the spinning icon underneath it. But it gets stuck there and doesn't boot off of the disk.
    4.) I shutdown the machine by holding the power-button and when it restarted I held D. It ran the hardware test fine and I passed the hardware test.
    5.) I shut it down again, same way in four, and held option. This time I chose to boot form the Mac OS X Install DVD. It again got stuck at the Grey screen with the Apple logo and the spinning icon.
    Does anyone know how to or can help me get my iMac to boot from the OSX install disc or how I can use Disc Utility to restore my iMac from TimeMachine?
    Thanks in Advance & Best Regards,
    theirf.

    Sorry, OE = Original Equipment - the grey discs that came with your Mac.
    SL = Snow Leopard - Mac OS X 10.6.x.
    theirf wrote:
    What do OE and SL mean?
    I think i understand though. You mean that any disc with a higher version of something will still work on a machine with a lower version of that thing right?
    Not any disc. The only grey ones that will work are those that came with that Mac.
    Any retail disc of a later OS version will work, and in most cases it would boot from an external HD with a later OS installed.
    However, as Snow Leopard only came on two retail versions, 10.6.0 and 10.6.3, the choice is a bit limited.
    The current retail version is available here.

  • IMac wont boot after displaying a black screen and then switching off

    Help! My iMac screen suddenly went black, with a huge purple cursor and then a text box with hugely magnified text appeared momentarily and then disapeared, (the text block was just the standard "You are now connected to ...... " the name of our Network ) after some time and nothing happening I quit using the power off button, when I came back after a short while and powered up again now I cant get past the white screen with the Apple logo and the spinning disc? No start up tone either.

    Yes, boot from the install disc and then use Disk Utility to repair the drive:
    1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
    2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
    Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
    3. Click the First Aid tab.
    4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
    5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
    6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk.

Maybe you are looking for

  • Creating new info type in HR module

    Hi all, My requirement is to resave 0000 info type as 0001 on certain condition, can I do that? Or is it the case that for creating custom info types range should be greater than 9000. Thanks and regards, Ridhima

  • Converting INTERVAL to single number

    I have two TIMESTAMP values. The difference, obviously, is INTERVAL DAY TO SECOND. I want to know the total time in the interval measured in seconds. I know that I can do 4 EXTRACT functions to get days, hours, minutes, and seconds separately; follow

  • Portal Content Invisible

    Hi All,          I am working on Portal.I am using SAP Netweaver 2004.I logged on with my user id and password.In the Content Administration in portal catalog Portal Content Folder is not visible. I need to create an transactional iView .Is there any

  • I cannot hear people over my phone when I make or receive calls

    This is a brand new iPhone 5 - did not drop it or has any other damage. I cannot hear people when I've answered. Volume on full, no plastic cover, just very poor quality of sound

  • Conversion rates in planning

    Hello, in a planning application i have a requirement to display figures in local currency, converted currency and converted currency with the exchange rate of date when the figures were validated. could you please give some advice on the best way to