Early 2008 iMac won't start up. Goes to apple logo and freezes

Early 2008 iMac won't start up. Goes to the apple logo but it has a couple of yellowish stripes on it. Then the whole screen gets the stripes and it freezes. Does the same thing using another start up drive or a recovery drive. Running Maverics. Help!

I work at an Authorized Apple Reseller and we are having the same problem with one of our showfloor models.
Model: iMac 21.5" (Brand New Core i3, etc)
Problem Description: When you press the power button, you hear the Apple chime and the screen turns on. Instead of booting normally, the screen shows the Apple logo, a spinning 'loading' circle (I call it a ferris wheel), and a loading bar below that. Typically the loading bar is for an EFI Firmware update, but I don't remember updating the iMac recently. Anyways, the loading bar moves once, starts over, and then the iMac shuts down.
Possibly Related Issue: Several days leading up to this issue, the computer was very noisy. It sounded like the hard drive was working overtime on indexing or something, but it ran fine and spotlight wasn't even indexing at all. I walked by it yesterday and noticed it wasn't on. I pushed the power button, and the problem it has now started.
I will keep searching the forum for a solution, but I have a feeling this is a hardware issue that will need to be serviced by Apple.
Sidenote: If anyone has any experience contacting apple as an Apple Reseller about repairing a computer before the warranty starts, any advice would be greatly appreciated

Similar Messages

Imac won't start beyond white screen apple logo and circle

Imac won't start beyond white screen, Apple logo and spinning circle

Follow the steps at > Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup

IMac won't start up - just have apple logo plus 'processing' symbol active?

Unable to start computer.

I work at an Authorized Apple Reseller and we are having the same problem with one of our showfloor models.
Model: iMac 21.5" (Brand New Core i3, etc)
Problem Description: When you press the power button, you hear the Apple chime and the screen turns on. Instead of booting normally, the screen shows the Apple logo, a spinning 'loading' circle (I call it a ferris wheel), and a loading bar below that. Typically the loading bar is for an EFI Firmware update, but I don't remember updating the iMac recently. Anyways, the loading bar moves once, starts over, and then the iMac shuts down.
Possibly Related Issue: Several days leading up to this issue, the computer was very noisy. It sounded like the hard drive was working overtime on indexing or something, but it ran fine and spotlight wasn't even indexing at all. I walked by it yesterday and noticed it wasn't on. I pushed the power button, and the problem it has now started.
I will keep searching the forum for a solution, but I have a feeling this is a hardware issue that will need to be serviced by Apple.
Sidenote: If anyone has any experience contacting apple as an Apple Reseller about repairing a computer before the warranty starts, any advice would be greatly appreciated

MacBook Pro won't boot after trying to install 10.7.3 update. Start up stalls at Apple logo and spinning gear.

MacBook Pro won't boot after trying to install 10.7.3 update. Start up stalls at Apple logo and spinning gear. Computer won't even start in safe mode.

My daughter's MacBook Pro was doing exactly the same thing. I don't know if it had anything to do with the latest update. She called me about a week ago saying that her MacBook began running slower by the day . She then called me Friday and told me that it wouldn't get past the gray screen and the gear just kept on spinning. I did everything I could over the phone including Safe mode which it wouldn't go into and thought maybe it was the hard drive. She took it to the Apple store. Originally, they also thought it was the hard drive. It ended up being a corrupted operating system (Lion). Apple genius simply re-installed Lion and she's back up and running. Good thing she backed up right before it crapped out. She'll be restoring everything tonight. Don't know if re-installing Lion will help your situation, but it did the trick for my daughter.

HT1430 My Ipad won't start up. The apple logo appears and just stays on the screen. after a while it starts blinking every minute

My Ipad won't start up. The apple logo appears and just stays on the screen. after a while it starts blinking every minute

Try recovery mode as described here.
Note you may have to try to enter recovery mode more than one time to succeed.
HT1808

Imac will not boot up, chimes with apple logo and beach ball spin??

imac will not boot up, chimes with apple logo and beach ball spin?? after installing adobe flash and up graded apple softeware

If your iMac came with or is running Lion, startup holding either the Command-R keys or the Option key and select the recovery partition and then use Disk Utility to repair the Macintosh HD.
see > OS X Lion: About Lion Recovery
If your running Snow Leopard or earlier OS X, pop in your Install DVD and startup holding either the Option or C key, then open and use Disk Utility to repair the Macintosh HD.
see > Mac OS X - Using Disk Utility to Repair a Disk

''Well When i plug in my ipod touch the battery life is low..i let it sit a wyhle.And it starts up to the apple logo and it stay there some time then it restartsback over to the very low battery and repeat(Over&Over)?

''Well When i plug in my ipod touch the battery life is low..i let it sit a wyhle.And it starts up to the apple logo and it stay there some time then it restartsback over to the very low battery and repeat(Over&Over)

Can you reset the device by holding the sleep and home button until the Apple logo comes back again?
If this does not work, try to connect in recovery mode, explained here: iOS: Unable to restore

Early 2008 iMac won't boot up

My early 2008 iMac was getting slow. It didn't really seem to have anything wrong with it other than being a 5 yr old middle of the line model with 4 GB of ram. But I decided it was time to upgrade and so bought a new iMac. After transfering files & apps to the new computer, I shut down the old one and moved it. I used it in my piano teaching studio, and so was intending to set it up for students to use. When I went to boot it up, however, it wouldn't. I unplugged it (from the computer and the outlet), then plugged it back in after a couple of minutes with no luck. I was told some time ago you didn't have to do this, but not knowing of anything else to try, I unplugged it again and then tried pressing the power button as I plugged it back in. No luck.
Any thing else I might try before taking it to the Apple store and seeing if they can start it?

Thanks for trying. I'd rest SMC before, but did it again just now with no luck. One thing that's weird is that since I moved it, the power cord, keyboard usb cable and wireless mouse usb transmitter have been difficult to remove. I actually had to get a pair of pliers to remove the transmitter (gripping the transmitter firmly but gently through a cloth so as not to damage it). I don't know if that would have anything connection to it not starting (I can't imagine how), but it's a notable change.

OS X won't start; stuck on the Apple logo

I went out of town on Friday and shut down my iMac G5 (Intel, purchased brand new January 2007). When I got home today and tried to boot it up, it stuck on the grey screen with the Apple logo and spinning gear. It will stay there until I either unplug my iMac or hold down the power button until it shuts down. This happens every time I attempt to boot OS X. I try to start in Safe Mode (holding down shift), but get the same result, same when I unplug all peripherals. I can, however, boot Windows XP via Boot Camp, which is what I am using to access the internet right now. Everything seems to be working perfectly in Windows XP, but it won't boot at all in OS X. I don't have access to my Install disc right now (It's at my dad's house; we got the family version of Leopard.), but I could get it if I absolutely have to.
Any suggestions? Thanks.

Your problem may be different, so it might serve you better to start your own thread. That said, both problems occurred when switching locations, so I wonder if the network/wifi might be involved. However, Niels, if you are unable to start at all, with any of those methods, there may be something more serious involved (we have had no feedback from the OP in the last few hours).
Showing the last screen suggests a total (and unusual) freeze with the computer not having shutdown or gone to sleep. Did you close the lid and leave it? If you cannot start with the disk or with the Option key it is not simply the OS gone awry, IMO.
Last resorts?
One thing not tried is to hold down the Command, Option , P , and R keys on the keyboard to reset PRAM.
Also, as a really last resort, hold down the Command, Option, O, and F keys. A grey screen will appear with a command line. Type +reset all+ and if that does not work, it is off to the shop.

My iMac won't boot i get an apple logo

my iMac won't boot i get an apple logo

Hi Paul,
If your iMac won't boot past a grey Apple screen, you may find the following article helpful:
Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2570
Regards,
- Brenden

Imac does not start white screen with apple logo.......

Hi guys, my brand new Imac 21.5 got stuck on the white screen with apple logo and nonstop little wheel, but it never gets out of it....Disconnected everything else restarted but still nothing...stuck at the same screen. Please i need help, the machine is only 3 months old!!!

Hi, do you have AppleCare?
Call AppleHelp in any event 1-800-275-2273
You could try booting from your discs (Disc#1) that came with your Mac -
...L

Computer won't start, grey screen with Apple logo only. Ideas?

Last night my wife's G5 froze. It is a G5 2.0 running OS X 10.4.11. I shut it down (had to use the power button) and tried to restart. No luck, just made it to the grey screen with Apple logo and spinning wheel. After a few seconds the Apple logo disappeared and a black box took its place, then the wheel stopped spinning. It was late, decided top wait until morning before trying again.
This morning I tried to start up again. This time got a warning(?) in upper left that a Firmtek item had already started. I'm sorry I didn't write this all down at the time, so I don't remember the entire message. Since there is a Firmtek card installed in one of the PCI slots I thought that might be the problem, and I pulled the card, as well as another Adaptec card that was also installed. Tried to start again, got to grey screen with Apple but this time no spinning wheel.
Opened media slot manually and inserted Diskwarrior. Tried to start with Diskwarrior but again only reached grey screen. Let run for ~5 minutes, until fans started to run and were begining to get noisy.
Next I reset the PRAM. No luck, still stuck on grey screen. Tried Diskwarrior again, this time got another message in upper left. Here is most of it -
System Failure : cpu=1; code=60000009 (Invalid pmap)
Lateset crash info for cpu1;
Exception state (sv=0x609bb280)
PC=0x000a4ad0; MSR=0x02003000 followed by more similar strings, then
backtrace terminated - unaligned frame address; 0xfc088891
So what's the diagnosis? I've had various issues with my G5s in the past, but have never had one refuse to boot with Diskwarrior before.
Thanks in advance for any help!

Whew, could be many things, from RAM, (or RAM slots/solder issue), to CPU #1 being bad, (CPU#1 is actually the second one.
Does it boot into any of these modes?
Target mode...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661
Does it boot to Single User Mode, CMD+s keys at bootup, if so try...
/sbin/fsck -fy
Repeat until it shows no errors fixed.
(Space between fsck AND -fy important).
Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
We might get clues with verbose mode...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1492

My Mac won't start up past the apple logo

My MacBook Pro will not start up past the apple logo. it just thinks. How do I fix the issue?

See the troubleshooting suggestions here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570

MacBook won't boot - stuck showing the Apple logo and the spinning circle.

Hi.
My MacBook suddenly froze when I was using it today. Displaying the spinning beach ball.
It never came out of it, fan running at max speed, so I tried to force restart it (Control-Command-Power), but that didn't work, so I forced the MacBook off (holding the power button pressed.)
When trying to start the MacBook again it couldn't boot. It kept displaying the grey screen, with the Apple logo and the spinning circle below the Apple logo.
I left the MacBook like this for 10-15 minutes, but nothing happened.
Went on to try the following.:
*- Removed the AC-adapter and battery for 5 minutes.*
*- Command-Option-P-R (Resetting PRAM and NVRAM).*
*- Resetting System Management Controller (SMC).*
*- Command-S (singleuser boot)*
And checking the HDD with sbin/fsck -fy
= "The volume ** appears to be OK."
*- Command-V*
Stops on the following line, and fan ramps up to full speed.:
DNSServiceRegister("ssh.tcp."): -65537)
Force reboot didn't work. Had to force it off.
But, nothing helped.
It simply won't boot.
I also tried to boot Ubuntu 7.10, but it hangs after a short while displaying "Kernel panic".
Force reboot didn't work. Had to force it off.
Also tried the option to boot from the first HDD (in the boot menu on the Ubuntu 7.10 disc), but that didn't work either. Only got a black screen, with a blinking cursor top left, and fan ramping up to max.
Again, force reboot didn't work. Had to force it off.
The only thing that has worked so far is exiting the Ubuntu 7.10 CD boot menu, and pressing enter on the prompt that appears.
But, after rebooting, the MacBook still refuses to boot into Mac OS X.
I left the MacBook alone, hoping it would work its way out of the spinning circle, but after 2 h 38 min nothing had happened.
Does anyone know how to fix this?
:. nattugglan

This happened to me last night.
I was updating my iPod and I got a message saying that it needed to do an update. I installed the update and went on ahead putting new songs on my iPod. When it was finished i ejected as I usually do and closed down.
When I went to check me e-mails this morning the Macbook would not boot. It sticks on the grey screen with the Apple and the spinny disc underneath, then it restarts and sticks on the same screen. The last software to be onstalled was Norton 11 on Monday but I have used the Macbook since. I cannot think why it will not boot.
I am loathed to do a reinstall as I have some things on the Macbook that I had not yet backed up.
Any advice?

Ipod won't turn on, flashes between apple logo and white screen

Our ipod touch won't turn on, it has been charged, but doesn't register anything on the screen. All that happens is it flashes between the apple logo and a white screen. My son says it's not been dropped/wet etc. Any suggestions?
THanks!

Tried it, it still shows the apple logo. While holding home and power it flashed to a back screen then the apple logo popped back up....

Early 2008 iMac won't start up. Goes to apple logo and freezes

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for