IMac won't boot from HD, are permissions relevant?

My iMac G5 was working perfectly yesterday. Today it started with the chime and the Apple logo, but then got stuck with the fan running - tried this several times. I then booted from my Leopard DVD, and the System is reported as normal. Tried Disk Utility which says HD is OK. Checked permissions in case this was a factor - it started making a long list of wrong permissions. I stopped this and tried to go straight to 'Repair Permissions'. DU said it was doing it and it would take "less than 1 minute", and then changed its mind to several hours (currently it says 2 but this goes up now and then. I am not at all sure that permissions have anything to do with my booting problem, so I am seeking advice on this forum. I do have a Time Machine backup of the HD, but I don't really know how to proceed in finding out what's wrong or in correcting it. So far can't find anything in Apple support pages. Can anyone help?

DU often gives enormously long times for permissions repair, sometimes the time estimated goes down very quickly, but I have one machine that takes 45 minutes to repair. I would suggest trying again, and also resetting your SMU, which can resolve some computer issues such as not starting up, not displaying video, sleep issues, fan noise issues, and so on. If your computer still exhibits these types of issues even after you've restarted the computer, try resetting the SMU. To reset the SMU on one of these iMacs:
1. Turn off the computer by choosing Shut Down from the Apple menu, or by holding the power button until the computer turns off.
2. Unplug all cables from the computer, including the power cord.
3. Wait 10 seconds.
4. Plug in the power cord while simultaneously pressing and holding the power button on the back of the computer.
5. Let go of the power button.
6. Press the power button once more to start up your iMac.
Please let us know which model you have, Rev A, Ambient Light or iSight.
Let us know how you make out,

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27" iMac won't boot from anything BUT the main drive

Hi all,
My lovely 27" iMac is in perfect working condition, but I thought I'd try to install a OS on a large SD card to see if I would gain any speed.
In the process of doing that (cause I never got that far) I discover that the iMac won't boot from the original install DVD. It simply spits out the DVD when I try to insert into the drive. I'v managed to make an image of the DVD (in a different mac) onto the SD card in order to try an boot from that. No luck. I've tried to insert a original install DVD from my Mac Pro into the iMac, which it reads fine and well, and when I tap the restart button it restarts, but stop with a white screen doing boot up.
If I try to hold down the option key during startup, the iMac WILL let me choose which OS to boot from, but if I choose anything else than the OS already installed it freezes.
I've even tried to boot my Mac Pro from the iMac install DVD - no problems.
I've even run a hardware test on the iMac - no problems.
I am running out of options fast! Please help a devoted Mac-friend.
Take care.
Peter

I WAS using the DVD that came with the machine, but I fear Apple may have sent me the wrong one?
In trying to solve the issues I'd tried other OS disc's (A Mac Pro install DVD and a OS X Leopard DVD) - but none of them would even boot, nor install of my iMac. I always end up with a white screen during boot up.
As I described, the original iMac install DVD would indeed boot my Mac Pro, do the disc seems ok?

IMac won't boot from Firewire?

Hey gang-
I wanted to post this to save anyone else pulling out their hair if they have a Mac that won't boot from a Western Digital (WD) external Firewire drive. I recently purchased a Western Digital My Book Studio 2 TB FireWire 800 External Hard Drive.
I bought this drive intending to partition it into two 1TB partitions- one for a bootable backup and one for a Time Machine backup. I do my bootable backups with the application SuperDuper, which is outstanding for this purpose. I have used it to create bootable backups on 3 different Maxtor external Firewire drives, and they have all flawlessly booted all my Macs. I expected no different from this new Western Digital (WD) 2TB drive.
Unfortunately, the WD would not boot 2 out of my 3 Macs when connected via Firewire. It would NOT boot an Intel MacBook (Late 2007 edition) or an Intel iMac (Mid 2007 edition). It does boot our Intel iMac (Mid-2010 edition). Strangely, the WD booted all 3 Macs when connected via USB, though needless to say very slowly in all cases. If you need additional technical information, read on.
Technical Info: The following tests were done with the WD connected via Firewire. The WD is correctly formatted for booting Intel Macs with GPT GUID formatting. Note that the WD appears as a bootable drive in System Preferences->Startup Disk on all 3 of my Macs. But when attempting to boot via Firewire, I get only a grey screen on the Intel MacBook (Late 2007 edition) and the Intel iMac (Mid 2007 edition). The Intel iMac (Mid-2010 edition) boots normally. When booting with the Option Key held down, Startup Manager does NOT see the WD as a bootable drive on the Intel MacBook (Late 2007 edition) and the Intel iMac (Mid 2007 edition). It does appear as a bootable drive on the Intel iMac (Mid-2010 edition).
When connected via USB, the WD boots all three of my Macs, but very slowly compared to the internal drive.
It's probably worth noting that the Late-2007 MacBook and the Mid-2007 iMac all share the then-new Santa Rosa architecture. So I'm guessing that they may share the same Firewire chipset. And for whatever reason, that chipset does not play nice with the WD chipset.
So, bottom line is that if you need a Firewire bootable backup, be sure to test the drive right away so that you don't think you have a bootable backup when in fact you don't.
On the good side, the drive is amazingly quiet. At this point, I need to decide whether to keep the drive, knowing that I have only USB as a bootable option on 2 out my 3 Macs, or return it. But in any case, wanted to pass this on to anyone else having problems booting from an external Firewire drive.

baltwo wrote:
FWIW, many WD HDs won't boot Macs and booting Macs isn't supported. Details at their site. That's the main reason I never recommend their crappy HDs.
Actually I'm very familiar with that list- spent a lot of time looking at this past week!
Ironically, the majority of that page is a list of drives which they claim WILL boot Macs. In fact, the list is entitled "List of Mac-bootable WD external drives..."
And yep, mine is on there...on the list that reads "The following external hard drives should be bootable on Intel-based Mac computers systems through FireWire (1394a/b)" is "MyBook Studio" as well as my drive model number.
But that's all beside the point. Like you, I couldn't recommend their drives at this point. At least make sure if you buy one that the vendor has a good return policy.
Dave

IMac won't boot from OS X install disc!

I'm needing to do some internal hard drive repairs but the system won't boot from the install disc! I've restarted it tons of times while holding down "C" and it just bypasses it and boots right into OS X. It restarts as normal with the chime (I am holding down "C") then the Apple logo comes up, then the spinning circle thing, but it just goes right into OS X. Help!

Let's be sure you are doing it properly.
First, you must use the OS X Installer Disc One that came with your computer. Carefully check both surfaces for scratches, dirt, fingerprints and if so clean it carefully with a very soft cleaning cloth that won't scratch the disc.
Second, insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer. After the chime press and hold down the "C" key. Release the key when the spinning gear appears below the dark gray Apple logo.

IMac won't boot from HDD - stays at gray screen

Quite simply, the iMac that we have in the house won't boot. It just gets stuck at the gray screen with the apple and the loading wheel (which is moving, so it's still not "frozen" per sey, but it sits there for going on 20 minutes). We have tried booting it in Safe Mode, which only succeeds in displaying the loading bar, but the computer still gets stuck. Single-User Mode works, but the fsck -fy command says that there are no errors. Booting from a Disk also does not work - we got it to get to the Setup Manager, but choosing the disk just freezes the computer. So we can't get into the Disk Utility. Loading in Verbose mode, the commands stop in the middle of "Running fsck on the boot volume", specifically "Launchcti: dubios permissions on file (skipping): /etc/mach_init.d"
The operating system is 10.6 something we believe, but we can't find out because we can't start up the computer. It is at least 10.6, if not newer.
Any ideas what's wrong and what could be done to fix it? We don't know a huge amount about Macs (although my brother knows a bit more about unix-based systems than I do). Any help would be appreciated!

Are you saying you haven't been backing up? If so and you have performed all the steps in the letter and reached the final step that says to do an erase and install then yeah you will lose all your data!
If you have not been backing up I hate to say it but this will be an extremely valuable lesson on why you should. That being said I'd also recommend bookmarking and reading the following 3 MacWorld articles on backing up, IMHO the common thread is not only should you be backing up but that you should do redundant backups.
Backup Plan I
Backup Plan II
Backup Plan III
Personally I use Time Machine and Super Duper on 2 seperate EHDs to backup daily.

Rev. A iMac Won't Boot From CD

Ok, this has stumped me. My brother gave me an old Rev. A iMac (233mhz, 128mb RAM), and I wanted to outfit it so my kid could play CD games and surf the 'Net (he's only 3, so we're not talking hard to please here).
Anyway, I bought a brand new 40GB Seagate 7200 ATA drive to replace the original 4GB drive so that I could install Panther for the stability. I installed it today, then popped in the OSX installation Disk 1, and it wouldn't boot. Got the flashing question mark/folder.
So I figured I might have to boot with the old OS, so I popped in the copy of 9.0 that came with my G3 Blueberry, and that started to boot (happy Mac appeared), but a few seconds later I got a popup that said, "A Fatal Error Has Occurred." My only option was to restart.
I've been looking for a while at issues already discussed that are sort of related to this, but nothing exactly with that error. I suspect it's a firmware problem, but if it won't even boot off the 9.2 CD, how can I update it?
Furthermore, the drive was right out of the baggie brand new. I assumed that even though it was completely blank, I could still boot up with an install CD and initialize the disk, get the firmware on there and install a system.
Now I'm thinking from what I've read in other threads that in order for success to be achieved, I'm going to have to boot up and install from the original OS8.1 CD that came with the machine, then incrementally upgrade the from there.
Any help would be kindly appreciated. The fatal error message and the inability to boot from a system CD scares me.
iMac G3 533mhz 256M/120G Mac OS X (10.3.9)

OS X needs to be on the first partition, OS 9 can be on the second. I think you have to have an installed an OS on the first partition so the boot blocks are set. I believe also that you have to have 8.5 or higher to do the OS X installation. The process on my PowerBook G3 Wallstreet was to install 9.2 first and then OS X following the guide in the Read Me on the install disk. I already had 9.1 on it at the time.
I remember it was a pain. I had to take it to work, back up the hard drive, partition and install. At the time it was 10.0 and ran so treacle slow. 10.1 fixed that, and it still has 10.1.5 on it running fine.
Also, the disk format has to be HFS+, not HFS. If you have an external drive, then you could install and do your upgrades on that until you can install on the internal.
There is also an iMac Firmware updater you will need to run available from Apple.com.

Upgrading iMac: Won't boot from 9.1 or 9.2 CD

I am upgrading a 350Mhz slot loading iMac. I put in a newer 500mhz mother board, a 60 gig drive, and 512 mb dimm. I have done this type of upgrade with other identical iMacs, except that the mother board was a 400mhz. In any event, there is no software on the internal hard drive, so I tried to boot from the 9.1 CD I have. The computer will chime and bring up the flashing question mark folder. I then tried just going ahead and loading OS 10.2. The iMac will boot from the CD with the C key held down with this disk, and it will get all the way to the startup of the installer. I have been able to use disk utility from here to format the hard drive. It shows up and formats O.K. Then, when I start the install sequence, I get all the way to the actual install, but while the software is checking the package contents, the computer either just stalls (mouse stops moving), or I get a kernel panic. I am presuming the problem is it doesn't have the 4.19 firmware installed. But if I can't get it to boot from the 9.1 disk, how can I install anything, much less the firmware.
By the way, I have replaced the PRAM battery, and I have reset the PRAM and NVRAM. Any ideas?

Don't those old imacs have a problem reading drives larger than 8GBs?
I believe that you are referring to the fact that some early Macs had to have large hard drives partitioned such that the first partition was less than 8 GB.
This is not applicable to the iMac 350 MHz or faster iMac (the slot loaders).
It is applicable to the tray loading iMacs (333 MHz and slower).

IMac won't boot from HDD or CD. Help!?

Hi,
I recently came back from holiday for a couple of weeks and sat down to start my iMac (24" C2D). The machine just sat at a white screen and wouldn't go anywhere. Thought, ah, I'll just reset the PRAM (unplugged power cable for a min or so), and still same problem. Eventually I got the mac to boot by holding down the power button, the long beep sounded and the mac booted. All was well, until the next time I powered it down. Same thing, however same resolution didnt work...
After numerous attempts holding c, I've managed to boot into the mac installer, which said it couldnt repair the drive through disk utility. As I have time machine backup, thought I'll just start from scratch. Created a new partition (just to make sure everything was fresh), verified disk (no problems), started installer and it crashed towards the very end of the install (just over 1 hour in) with errors of being unable to copy files. After another few hours, managed to boot from CD again, this time install started, left it running overnight, only to find the mac in the morning on, but with a black screen. I've had to power it off and now I'm left with the same issue of a white screen and being unable to boot from CD.
Does any of this make sense to anyone? Could be a failed HDD, but why would I have the issue with the iMac generally refusing to boot from CD? Ran hardware diagnostic (extended) and no problems found.
I now have no hair left...

I assume that model has a back up battery in it? If so, have you changed it recently? If not you may want to replace it. In the meantime, try removing it completely and see if it starts up any better. If the battery is right on the hairy edge of good/too low, it might be corrupting the PRAM (or whatever they call it now on new models) causing start up issues. If you remove it, you won't retain a lot of settings such as Date and Time, but you should also be able to boot up eat time with all default values.
I had the same sort of issue with my eMac and pulling the battery cleared it up. That was many months ago and one of these days I might get around to buying a replacement battery... or not.
Cheers,
Patrick

Imac won't boot from disk or restart

I'm trying to erase the HD on my powerpc G4 imac (2003). I have two issues preventing me from doing so. The first seems to be that I can't boot from the Tiger disk because I have a newer wireless keyboard with no other options available to me (the old white keyboard is long gone). So, I think it's not responding when I hold down the C button. The second issue is that the computer won't restart or shut down. It goes through the motions and gets to the point where the dock disappears and just the desktop is showing and it stays there indefinitely. I have to hold down the power button to get it to turn off. Then when I turn it back on it says that OS X quit unexpectedly. So, I can't perform any functions that require a restart. It doesn't seem to finish the process before I shut the computer off.

Hi Sleepy Pants,
I'm sorry to hear about your computer.
Unforchently the wireless keyboard can not be used to perform disk boot. At least when the computer is not booting properly. Do you have any wired USB keyboard? Any usb keyboard should be enough to safeboot, or boot to the install disk.
Good Luck
-tt

G5 iMac won't boot from HD

Received an old G5 (earliest model) from a friend along with one install disc (10.3.5). I tried reinstalling OS X since it appeared the drive had been wiped. However, the install disc appeared to be scratched and corrupted. So I copied the disc in a newer PC and the install seemed fine.
Unfortunately, the G5 wouldn't boot from the internal hd. So I ran the disk utility and it seems that there are some bad clusters on the included drive. I then replaced the drive w/ an existing SATA drive I had laying around. Repartitioned the new drive (Apple Partition Scheme) and re-ran the install. Same result. The install seemed to go fine, but when rebooted the G5 couldn't see the new drive, even in target disk mode.
So I'm kinda stuck. While I have a couple of other Macs, I'm by no means an expert, with most of my experience being on the Windows and Linux platforms.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Kelly

On the hard drive, there should be a little patch of pins between the power and data cables for something called "jumpers" that determine whether the drive is Master, Slave, Secondary, etc. The drive should say where the jumper should be for Master; make sure it's set that way. I personally ran into the same problem with my iMac G3, and sure enough, the jumper was set to Slave; when I set it to Master, the iMac booted fine.
-Galen

2007 iMac won't boot from startup disc

My brother passed away and I inherited his Mid 2007 iMac. Works fine, but all accounts are still in his name and I do not have his passwords. Trying to wipe the hard drive and do a clean start, but unable to boot from startup disc. It was purchased with Snow Leopard, but has been updated to Lion 10.8.3. It appears that there may be a security feature that rejects any attempt to boot from startup disc. Is there another way to wipe hard drive and start clean?

Sorry for your loss ...
The original startup disc will not work on a Mac running v10.8.3.
The fact that you do not have the admin password is a problem because you will need it to repair the startup or restore OS X using OS X Recovery

IMac won't boot from Techtools CD

I've been trying to track down the reason for my wife's iMac G5 20" and its incessant fans. Even when there's no disk activity, the fans will come on like a plane landing.
First, I tried to boot from the DiskWarrior CD - and failed. The machine simply wouldn't recognise me holding down the 'C' key. Then I inserted the Techtools CD and did the same. So far the machine is sitting here stuck at the grey start-up screen with the fans going like crazy.
**** it, the machine is acting weird and it won't let me repair it.
Anybody out there have any ideas of my next step??

Try running the hardware tester that came with her iMac. There probably is a problem on the midplane and/or power supply.
-Bmer
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IMac won't boot from install disc

My iMac has been running a little slow the past two days and so I ran Disk Utility. DU reported that I had the incorrect number of thread records and an invalid volume count. It instructed me to repair the disk by booting from the install disc. The problem is that when I try to boot from the install disc (after I choose the disc from the options), I just get a gray screen with the apple logo on it. Nothing else happens, no disc activity, nothing.
Anyone have any ideas as to how to get my iMac to boot from the disc and, ultimately, to get Repair Disc running from DU?
Thanks,
Rich

It should only take a minute or so at most to boot from the DVD.
If your sure you have the correct Install Disk for that iMac, I'd start over. Then if it still doesn't work then perhaps a trip to your Local Apple Service Provider with the Disk or Disk and iMac is in order.
http://www.apple.com/buy/locator/service/
Alternately using the correct Disk as per the following article, see if you can run the Apple Hardware Test? > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509

Intel iMac won't boot from disc or in safe mode - cannot repair disk

I have an early Intel iMac 20" (2GHz core duo) that generally works fine. I recently ran Onyx and it reported a startup disk error, suggesting I insert the install disk, hold 'c', and use disk utility to repair the disk.
NOTE: I have performed this operation successfully in the past and know how to do it.
On this occasion, the iMac simply booted up to the normal desktop each time after multiple attempts at booting from both the original OSX 10.4.4 install disc and the OSX 10.5.1 install disc (current os is 10.5.8).
I then attempted to start holding 'shift' to start in safe mode but again, repeated attempts all landed me on my normal desktop.
I then attempted to hold 'option' to be given the choice of startup disc but again was ignored and went straight to my normal desktop after multiple attempts.
Note that my iMac appears to be running fine otherwise. I was just trying to perform some routine maintenance and have run across this problem.
Any ideas? This mac will be 5 years old soon and I would like to keep it running for a while longer.

Hello Devoidarex
You'll want to use the Leopard Install DVD to Repair your Startup Volume and may want to try a USB keyboard if your using a wireless.
Another option is to insert the DVD and go to: System Preferences > Startup Disk > select the Install DVD > then Restart.
Dennis

IMac won't boot from/install Lion. Why?

I have a 2006-model iMac (iMac5,1 with a 2GHz Core 2 Duo processor and 2.5GB RAM; this is one of Apple's supported configurations for Lion) which has been running quite nicely for several years now. About a year or so ago I moved it to 10.6 which went smooth as silk. Last week I decided to move it to 10.7 and right about now I'm ready to throw this iMac in the effin' trash. It simply WILL NOT boot from OS X 10.7 no matter what.
I first put my 10.7 installer on the computer while it was running 10.6. I launched it, it copied a bunch of stuff, then restarted the computer. Then....nothing. I got the Apple logo with the spinner. I waited about 20 minutes for something greater to happen but nothing did so I forced a shut down. Unfortunately that attempt seems to have destroyed my previous 10.6 installation. Any further attempt to start from that hard drive yields an infinite spinner with the Apple logo but never any desktop or anything useful.
I then put my old iMac into Target Disk Mode, connected it to my newer iMac (iMac7,1 with 4GB RAM running 10.7.4), and used Disk Utility to reformat the old iMac's hard drive. That went fine. I then ran the OS X 10.7 installer on my new iMac, directing it to install onto the old iMac's hard drive. It took about 10 minutes to copy its files then directed me to restart which I did. I got the spinner-with-Apple for a few minutes followed by a spinner-with-circle-slash forever (about 15 minutes before I forced a shut down). I was able to reboot my newer iMac from its internal hard drive without any issues but every time I tried booting the newer iMac from the older iMac's hard drive I would get the spinner-with-Apple for a few minutes followed by a spinner-with-circle-slash forever thing. The same thing happened when I took the older iMac out of TDM and tried to boot it from its own hard drive. Trying that in verbose mode shows "Waiting for DSMOS" as the final line before the machine stalls. It is important to note that (a) this is a legitimately purchased Lion license that I bought last year, and (b) I'm trying to install it on an Apple iMac, not a Hackintosh.
Next, I ran the Recovery Disk Assistant to create a bootable 10.7 recovery USB drive. The creation of the drive went fine and I'm able to boot my newer iMac from the drive — but I cannot boot the older iMac from it, again getting the spinner-with-Apple for a few minutes followed by a spinner-with-circle-slash forever thing. Verbose mode shows the DSMOS error again.
My next step was to extract the "InstallESD.dmg" bootable system image from the installer app and clone that onto a USB drive. That went fine and I was able to boot my newer iMac from that drive but I was unable to boot the older iMac from that drive, again getting the spinner-with-Apple for a few minutes followed by a spinner-with-circle-slash forever thing with verbose mode showing the DSMOS error.
Next I tried to reverse things. I put my newer iMac into TDM, connected it to the older iMac, and tried to boot the older iMac from the newer iMac's hard drive. This failed too. I never got the circle-slash thing, only the Apple logo forever. Verbose mode shows the last line being "BootCacheControl: Unable to open /var/db/BootCache.playlist: 2 No such file or directory".
Finally, I pulled out a spare external hard drive. From my new iMac I booted from my USB drive (the one I cloned "InstallESD.dmg" onto), installed Lion onto the external drive, and booted successfully from the external drive. Everything was running perfectly. I ran System Update until everything was fully updated, then connected that external drive to the old iMac and tried to boot. Again, Apple logo forever with verbose mode showing the BootCacheControl error.
To ensure that the older iMac was fully operational I dug out the old OS install discs and ran the "extended" diagnostic. Everything came up perfect with no errors.
I then pulled out my OS X 10.6 DVD and tried booting the older iMac from it. That worked perfectly, and I was able to format and install 10.6 without any hiccups or issues whatsoever. The iMac is perfectly operational under 10.6.
So why the phargl can't I get 10.7 on this bloody machine?!?!?

In addition to MGW's suggestion...........
See the following Articles:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25497 Older versions of Mac OS than what comes with your computer
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25517 Mac OS: Versions, builds included with PowerPC Macs (since 1998)
==========
Without the original System DVDs that came w/the iMac, all you have is a glorified doorstop. You need the System DVDs to troubleshoot. *Especially Install Disc #1.*
You can get replacement System Install & Restore CD/DVDs from Apple's Customer Support - in the US, (800) 767-2775 - for a nominal S&H fee. You'll need to have the model and/or serial number of your Mac available.
If you're not in the US, you may need to go through the regional Apple Store that serves your location to find the contact number. Here's a list of links to all of those -
http://store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/intlstoreroutingpage.html

IMac won't boot from HD, are permissions relevant?

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