IMAC 2011 - Won't boot & 3 beeps...Apple Novice

I came home to find my IMAC stuck at the grey apple screen with a circle of dots spinning...I've been trying to piece together the events that led up to this:
1) The night before I ran some updates including the osx 10.7.4 update and then selected restart and went to bed
2) THe next day my son says that they tried to put a DVD in and it was still on the grey screen...they inserted the DVD anyway
3) I tried unplugging etc and then rebooting but same grey screen
4) I rebooted with the track pad held down and it managed to eject the DVD
5) Now when rebooting i get 3 bleeps repeated, I've retried this a few times and its the same
6) I have rebooted using CMD R and see that the Macintosh HD is listed showing 466 GB free which I hope means that the other 534GB is still on there...not sure if I should repair it
I've had this IMAC since January and am ashamed ot say that I DONT THINK I HAVE A BACK UP yet...I was ust about to buy an external HD big enough to back it up so VERY CONCERNED about losing my recently uploaded entire family home movie collection as I speak my wife is holding back the tears...any advice?

One additional thing I would add to Paul_31's advice. It would be wise to restart in Safe Mode, this will reset some caches. It is possible one or more cache has become corrupt too so this will clear them. After you have restarted in Safe Mode restart the machine as you normally do.
Also please carefully re-read your owner's manual. What I'm referring to is Apple says:
Putting Your iMac to Sleep
If you‘ll be away from your iMac for less than a few days, put it to sleep. When your iMac is in sleep, its screen is dark. You can quickly wake your iMac and bypass the startup process.
To put your iMac to sleep, do one of the following:
Choose Apple () > Sleep from the menu bar.
Press the power button (®) on the back of your iMac.
Choose Apple () > System Preferences, click Energy Saver, and set a sleep timer.
Hold down the Play/Pause button (’) on the optional Apple Remote for 3 seconds.
To wake your iMac from sleep, do one of the following:
Press any key on the keyboard.
Click the mouse.
Press the power button (®) on the back of your iMac. Â Press any button on the optional Apple Remote.
When your iMac wakes from sleep, your applications, documents, and computer settings are exactly as you left them.

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I have an iMac that won't boot up. I've read all posts on this subject to no avail. When power is switched on, it chimes, Apple logo appears, spinning wheel, then loading bar starts to fill. It gets to about 25% then switches off! Help please!

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You've probably tried this, but will it Safe Boot? Restart holding down the Shift key until you see the grey progress bar. You'll need to input your admin password during bootup. If it will boot you can then try to eject the disk using the various suggestions here that you haven't tried already:
http://osxdaily.com/2009/08/28/eject-a-stuck-disk-from-your-mac-dvd-super-drive/
Or this (not tried this myself, but if things are desperate): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7NYW9Dr448

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I have a strange problem.
My 24" iMac 2007 won't boot. It won't boot either from CD/DVD or anything. It will display the white screen with the Apple logo, and the spinning wheel under it, until the spinning wheel will stop spinning. Using my old Linux knowledge, I find that it seems like it freezes on "Login Window Application". Before this happened the iMac would occationally freeze, creating strange wave-patterns across the screen.
I have tried the following:
1) safe mode - same result
2) reset NVRAM - same result
3) single user - I can fix the filesystem, delete loginmanager files - same result
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regards

OK, thanks, that was a helpful reply.
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2) the AHT tells me nothing about my HDD - as if it's not there.....
I make two conclusions from that; namely that one RAM block is faulty and the HDD is invisible seen from AHT. The latter would stress me immensely, if I hadn't seen the entire drive from single user mode before. There could be some faulty sectors though that would mean that the OS is behaving strangely.
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IMac G5 won't boot from CD drive, Please Help

My iMac G5 won't boot from the CD drive. There is no operating system on the hard drive so I want to install a fresh copy of Leopard. I have tried a couple different methods, but I keep getting the same end result. The first method I tried was booting from the CD drive by holding the C key during start up. The Leopard disc was automatically ejected after about 20-30 seconds. The second method I tried was booting the iMac to the "question mark file screen," which is when I inserted the Leopard disc. Usually on other Mac computers, this is when the computer will show the Apple logo and prompt you with the installation process. Not this iMac, it just ejects the disc shortly after I insert it. I'm not sure if it's the CD drive that is having the issue, the hard drive, or something else.
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Thank you,
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Where did you get the CD from?
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IMac G5 won't boot up

My iMac g5 won't boot up. The indicator comes on, but the screen stays black. Help!

Looks like you have both an Intel and an older iMac G5 PPC. Do you hear the chime on startup?
The chime is quite meaningful. It means the computer passed the P.O.S.T / Power On Self Test.
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/10/22/mac-101-whats-happening-when-your-mac-is-starting -up/
See
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1367

Macbook flickering screen & freeze, then won't boot pass the apple logo

Hi Guys,
My macbook is driving me insane now. Just recently, my macbook has occasionally flickering screen and freezes after that. Yesterday, when I was watching youtube on fullscreen, it first has flickering screen, then freezes. So I hard booted it pressing the power button. Then, when I try to restart it, it won't boot pass the apple logo no matter what.
Here's my macbook spec
2007 Summer Macbook Pro 15"
Snow Leopard 10.6 OS X
I cracked my screen once, and got a replacement, don't know if that matters.
I've tried the following:
Safe mood reboot, the progress bar goes about half, then disappears and stalls again.
Booted in verbose mode but it gives a warning message:
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Reinstalled Snow Leopard OS X 10.6.
This time it booted with Finder and everything for a short while, then the screen flicker and freezes again (before I can backup anything!). Then, I can't reboot pass the apple logo again.
When I try to reinstall Leopard OS X 10.5 with installation disk, the macbook seems to try to read the disk, but won't boot. I've got a CD stuck in the optical drive now.
I've tried everything I can find online short of opening it up and send it into the oven for baking! I pray it's not a hardware problem, coz I'm no good at that. (QAQ~~~) Please help me!
Thank you very, very, very much!!!
ps. this is my first post. please let me know if I have missed anything.

starangelam wrote:
When I try to reinstall Leopard OS X 10.5 with installation disk, the macbook seems to try to read the disk, but won't boot. I've got a CD stuck in the optical drive now.
Reboot the machine holding the trackpad or left wired mouse button down, that shoudl force eject the 10.5 disk.
Reinstalled Snow Leopard OS X 10.6.
This time it booted with Finder and everything for a short while, then the screen flicker and freezes again (before I can backup anything!). Then, I can't reboot pass the apple logo again.
Ok, so your attempting data recovery efforts.
First get the 10.5 disk out of the machine, like above.
You can also boot into Single User mode, (command s at reboot) and enter
/usr/bin/drutil eject
then type
restart
Next hold c boot and use the 10.6 disk and create a data recovery drive here on a blank external drive, make sure you clean and polish the bottom of the 10.6 disk, if it's bad you will need to get a new one.
Create a data recovery, undelete boot drive
If your problems continue on this drive even with a clean or new 10.6 disk, it's likely a hardware issue with your Mac, not a issue with the drive.
I suspect a failing sector on your internal boot drive, you installed OS X right over the same spot perhaps, as you were obviously able to boot from the 10.6 disk to install it so it seems the hardware of the Mac appears to be working.
You might have other issues relateing to software perhaps, something your installing or running.
Step by Step to fix your Mac
Once you have gotten your files off the internal drive, you may want to look into doing a Zero Erase with Disk Utility before resintalling 10.6 again fresh install method.
Reducing bad sectors effect on hard drives
How to erase and install Snow Leopard 10.6
Look into making a bootable clone, it's easier to restore with and more options than Timemachine
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Upgrade from snow leopard 10.6.8 to montain lion on a iMac system won't boot getting a crossed out circle

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Clean install OS.10.6.8 update it completly. May be you ignored some firmware update.
I have two incedents.
My thunderbolt port stopped working after upgrading to ML 10.8. I booted from external 10.6 , 10.7 still didnt work. Then i clean installed 10.6.8 and ran software update it updated the thunderbolt firmware and all is well now. This firmware update for some reason didnt show up in ML 10.8.
Secondly , when i upgraded my Brother's Macbook from 10.5 to 10.6.3 it would install but stuck with crossed out circle. Then i downgraded checked for update found an efi update , then the 10.6.3 worked fine.

PowerBook Won't Boot Past the Apple and Spinning Flower Screen...

I've been reading a lot of these forums, but still haven't figured out how to fix it on my laptop. So, I made my own topic.
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com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement isn't a valid mach-o (magic is cefaedfe)
error mapping module file com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement
can't map com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement in preparation for loading
couldn't alloc class "AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement"
Etc, etc. And then the last lines that it ends with say:
BSD root: disk0s3, major 14, minor 2
[HCIController][configurePM] power parent ready after 1 tries
And it just stays there and doesn't boot up.
I honestly don't know what any of this means, or if it is even relevant to why my PowerBook won't boot past the Apple screen. If you have any information on how I could fix it, that'd be great. Also, if you have any questions that would help you figure it out, ask away and I will answer them.
Thanks a lot.
Message was edited by: MixtapeChick

MixtapeChick:
Welcome to Apple Discussions. Congratulations on your "new" PowerBook. I suggest that you begin with this combination procedure:
• Shut down the computer.
• Locate the following keys: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously later.
• Turn on the computer.
• Press and hold the Command + Option + P + R keys immediately after the startup chime.
• Hold keys down until you hear the startup chime for the third time.
• Release the keys and immediately hold down Shift key to start up in Safe Mode.
• Log in and empty Trash.
• Restart normally and log in.
Let us know how it goes.
cornelius

IMac - it won't boot up.

I have a 2 yr. old 23.5" iMac that won't boot up. Is there a history of power supply failure or mother board failure on these macines?

Have you tried resetting the SMC? Unplug power cord for 15 seconds. Plug back in and then press power button.
Here is the link for info about resetting SMC.

I have a macbook 2011 and its booting to the apple with a loading bar. it gets halfway and changes to a screen with the apple and a spinning circle. It spins untill it dies. will not boot to safe mode. Do not have orriginal osx disk either.... HELP :(

i have a macbook 2011 and its booting to the apple with a loading bar. it gets halfway and changes to a screen with the apple and a spinning circle. It spins untill it dies. will not boot to safe mode. Do not have orriginal osx disk either.... HELP

It happened after an update

Need Help with iMac 350 - Won't boot - keyboard or mouse not working!

Hello,
I've scoured the web looking for answers, and can't find any, so maybe someone here would be kind enough to help. I'm working on an imac 350 blueberry for my sister and I'm having all sorts of trouble.
She bought it last week, it started up (8.6 os) no problem. Powered up and down a few times, then all of a sudden, it won't boot. I'm currently getting blinking folder/happymac/question mark when trying to start up.
Here's the big problem - the keyboard and mouse do not work now. I've tried three different mice and three keyboards and no dice with any of them. I have the 8.6 CD from her previous imac (bondi), and I can hear it spinning, but there is no way to start up from cd.
I've also tried 2 other hard drives with the same results.
Tried resetting CUDA on logic board, taking out battery, no change. Bought new battery- no change.
I would love to at least get the keyboard working to see if I can even startup from cd, anyone have any clues on how to get it working? The strange thing is that the keyboard has a power on button, and it works to start the thing up, but dies when it tries to boot. Sometimes I just get a grey screen with the pointer icon, and I can move the pointer with the mouse for a second or two, then no response.
I appreciate any help or suggestions on locating the issues!
Thank you!

When I said "but dies when it tries to boot" and "..then no response." I meant that the keyboard works to power up the computer, but won't work for anything else. So, I am figuring that the usb ports are supplying power to the keyboard and mouse, but the usb ports aren't relaying information from the keyboard or mouse.
How do you know the mouse isn't working? Won't you have to wait until later in the boot to tell?
The poweron key is a special case. I think that it works by lowering/changing the voltage on one of the usb cables. I read about this somewhere. Anyway, this function was eliminated from later usb keyboards and macs. Maybe a working power button doesn't mean what you think.
I would love to boot into open firmware
Could you try powering up from the machine? Is there a power button on the lower right of the machine?
Have you tried this key combo?
commandoption+of
The letters are in lower case. Hold all down then poweron the machine. I'd poweron from the machine as apposed to the keyboard.
You could try another usb keyboard.
We actually did boot up the computer several times with it upside down. Not for any reason, except it's become a real PIA to flip it over every two minutes to start it, then take it apart and boot again. When booting either upside down or right side up it shows the same thing - blinking folder w/finder icon and question mark.
Yes, I agree. You could try removing the clear plastic around the bottom of the machine. At least you will not have to slide in the carriage. Note. The tv portion will still be surrounded by plastic! Don't remove the plastic around the tv!
Hope I am not interfering with Richard and his comments.
Richard: Is this the orginal keyboard? When did Apple get rid of the poweron key from the keyboard? My iMac 600 didn't have the key and my iMac 233 does.
Robert
Robert

Powermac G4 (OS 10.4.11) won't boot past grey apple

1- My PowerMac G4 (running OS 10.4.11) won't boot past the grey screen with the apple. Any suggestions?

I found somewhere else how to hold down the mouse on starting, which opened the tray. I was able to startup with the disk, holding down the C and get to the Disk Utility window. Tried repairing the disk, but got this message:
Fist Aid failed:
Disk Utility stopped verifying "Macintosh HD" because the following error was encountered:
The underlying task reported failure on exit. <OK>
and in the info window it says,
"Verifying volume "Macintosh HD"
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Catalog file entry not found for extent
The volume needs to be repaired.
Volume check failed.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972)
1 volume checked
0 HFS volumes verified
1 volume failed verification
Sounds pretty ominous! Of course, the recommendation is that I backup everything , but how can I if I can't get to the desktop to back it up? (It hasn't had a lot of use for sometime, but is available as a film scanning station, and so that I can access scanned images on my iMac. I doubt that there is a whole lot on the drive that isn't backed up, but I would prefer to back it up for sure!)
Thank you again.

IMAC 2011 - Won't boot & 3 beeps...Apple Novice

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