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.

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My iMac won't boot up it has a gray screen and makes a steady beeping sound

My iMac won't boot up it makes a steady beeping sound and has a gray screen, occasionally it shows a picture of a file with a question mark blinking in the center, can anyone help

The blinking question mark indicates that the firmware could not find a valid Operating System on your machine.
Your harddrive may have failed. Your filesystem may have bcome corrupted.

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 with install CD with gray screen

A couple of weeks ago I turned on my computer and couldn't get past the gray screen (with no Apple logo). I couldn't boot in safe mode, and had to boot with software install disc. I recently had to unplug my computer for a move and when I turned it on I had the same problem. Unfortunately after resetting PRAM nothing happened, and I couldn't boot in safe mode. Then I tried booting with disc pressing C during startup, and it sounded like the disc was reading ( I could hear it spinning), but I still had nothing but a gray screen. Also tried booting with recovery disc that comes with Apple Protect Plan and couldn't get past gray screen. After I leave the computer on for a couple of hours I get the folder with question mark flashing. Can anyone help?

den.thed,
Thanks. I tried the sleep method, but if I were listening to music through my Apple TV or was watching multiple movies, the IMac would shut down or go to sleep after 3 hours and sometimes that became a real bother. I have a HD with just my music from ITunes on it and then I have a new 1 TB HD that I have nothing but movies on it. Those are the 2 I want to leave on at all times, but the machine would freeze if I had both plugged in. Thanks!

IMac won't boot...goes to gray screen

I have an iMac 27...think it's a 2011. I'm running 10.10.1. Last week the machine crashed a couple times and after the last one, wouldn't boot to the login screen. It went to the gray screen And then rebooted itself. Took it in to the local Apple Store where they ran diagnostics for a couple days. Long story short, they reinstalled 10.10.1. Brought the machine home and it worked for about 4 hours before it crashed again, and I'm now back to the incomplete boot to gray screen. This sound familiar to anyone?

Yes Mike, I followed all the recommended trouble-shooting steps when this first happened, and then took the machine to the Apple Store where they reinstalled the OS and sent me on my way. The problem has returned.
Anyone else?

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?

My 27" imac won't boot in normal mode. The screen stays white. I have upgraded to Yosemite. However, the computer does boot in safe mode. Could this be a virus related issue or possibly a video card issue?

My 27" iMac will not boot in normal mode. The screen stays white. The computer will boot in safe mode. Could this be virus related or is it possibly an issue with my video card. Before this happened, my computer screen was flashing weird things and the computer would unexpectedly power down.

1. This procedure is a diagnostic test. It changes nothing, for better or worse, and therefore will not, in itself, solve the problem. But with the aid of the test results, the solution may take a few minutes, instead of hours or days.
Don't be put off by the complexity of these instructions. The process is much less complicated than the description. You do harder tasks with the computer all the time.
2. If you don't already have a current backup, back up all data before doing anything else. The backup is necessary on general principle, not because of anything in the test procedure. Backup is always a must, and when you're having any kind of trouble with the computer, you may be at higher than usual risk of losing data, whether you follow these instructions or not.
There are ways to back up a computer that isn't fully functional. Ask if you need guidance.
3. Below are instructions to run a UNIX shell script, a type of program. As I wrote above, it changes nothing. It doesn't send or receive any data on the network. All it does is to generate a human-readable report on the state of the computer. That report goes nowhere unless you choose to share it. If you prefer, you can act on it yourself without disclosing the contents to me or anyone else.
You should be wondering whether you can believe me, and whether it's safe to run a program at the behest of a stranger. In general, no, it's not safe and I don't encourage it.
In this case, however, there are a couple of ways for you to decide whether the program is safe without having to trust me. First, you can read it. Unlike an application that you download and click to run, it's transparent, so anyone with the necessary skill can verify what it does.
You may not be able to understand the script yourself. But variations of the script have been posted on this website thousands of times over a period of years. The site is hosted by Apple, which does not allow it to be used to distribute harmful software. Any one of the millions of registered users could have read the script and raised the alarm if it was harmful. Then I would not be here now and you would not be reading this message.
Nevertheless, if you can't satisfy yourself that these instructions are safe, don't follow them. Ask for other options.
4. Here's a summary of what you need to do, if you choose to proceed:
☞ Copy a line of text in this window to the Clipboard.
☞ Paste into the window of another application.
☞ Wait for the test to run. It usually takes a few minutes.
☞ Paste the results, which will have been copied automatically, back into a reply on this page.
The sequence is: copy, paste, wait, paste again. You don't need to copy a second time. Details follow.
5. You may have started the computer in "safe" mode. Preferably, these steps should be taken in “normal” mode, under the conditions in which the problem is reproduced. If the system is now in safe mode and works well enough in normal mode to run the test, restart as usual. If you can only test in safe mode, do that.
6. If you have more than one user, and the one affected by the problem is not an administrator, then please run the test twice: once while logged in as the affected user, and once as an administrator. The results may be different. The user that is created automatically on a new computer when you start it for the first time is an administrator. If you can't log in as an administrator, test as the affected user. Most personal Macs have only one user, and in that case this section doesn’t apply. Don't log in as root.
7. The script is a single long line, all of which must be selected. You can accomplish this easily by triple-clicking anywhere in the line. The whole line will highlight, though you may not see all of it in the browser window, and you can then copy it. If you try to select the line by dragging across the part you can see, you won't get all of it.
Triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it:
PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/libexec;clear;cd;p=(Software Hardware Memory Diagnostics Power FireWire Thunderbolt USB Fonts SerialATA 4 1000 25 5120 KiB/s 1024 85 \\b%% 20480 1 MB/s 25000 ports ' com.clark.\* \*dropbox \*genieo\* \*GoogleDr\* \*k.AutoCAD\* \*k.Maya\* vidinst\* ' DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES\ DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH -86 "` route -n get default|awk '/e:/{print $2}' `" 25 N\\/A down up 102400 25600 recvfrom sendto CFBundleIdentifier 25 25 25 1000 MB ' com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0 com.adobe.CS4ServiceManager com.adobe.CS5ServiceManager com.adobe.fpsaud com.adobe.SwitchBoard com.apple.AirPortBaseStationAgent com.apple.FolderActions.enabled com.apple.FolderActions.folders com.apple.installer.osmessagetracing com.apple.mrt.uiagent com.apple.ReportCrash.Self com.apple.SafariNotificationAgent com.apple.usbmuxd com.google.keystone.agent com.google.keystone.daemon com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool com.oracle.java.JavaUpdateHelper ' ' 879294308 3627668074 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' s/^ ?n...://p;s/^ ?p...:/-'$'\t''/p;' 's/0/Off/p' ' END{print NR} ' ' /id: N|te: Y/{i++} END{print i} ' ' / / { print "'"${p[28]}"'";exit;};1;' '/ en/!s/\.//p' ' NR!=13{next};{sub(/[+-M]$/,"",$NF)};'"`S0 39 40`" ' $10~/$L/&&$9!~"localhost" { sub(/.+:/,"",$9);print $1": "$9;} ' '/^ +r/s/.+"(.+)".+/\1/p' 's/(.+\.wdgt)\/(Contents\/)?Info\.plist$/\1/p' 's/^.+\/(.+)\.wdgt$/\1/p' ' /l: /{ /DVD/d;s/.+: //;b0'$'\n'' };/s: /{ /V/d;s/^ */- /;H;};$b0'$'\n'' d;:0'$'\n'' x;/APPLE [^:]+$/d;p;' ' /^find: /d;p;' "`S0 44 45`" ' BEGIN{FS="= "} /Path/{print $2} ' ' /^ *$/d;s/^ */ /;' ' s/^.+ |\(.+$$//g;p ' '/\.appex\/Contents\/Info\.plist$/p' ' /2/{print "WARN"};/4/{print "CRITICAL"};' );c1=(system_profiler pmset\ -g nvram fdesetup find syslog df vm_stat sar ps sudo\ crontab sudo\ iotop top pkgutil 'PlistBuddy 2>&1 -c "Print' whoami cksum kextstat launchctl sudo\ launchctl crontab 'sudo defaults read' stat lsbom mdfind ' for i in ${p[24]};do ${c1[18]} ${c2[27]} $i;done;' defaults\ read scutil sudo\ dtrace sudo\ profiles sed\ -En awk /S*/*/P*/*/*/C*/*/airport networksetup mdutil sudo\ lsof test osascript\ -e sysctl\ -n pluginkit );c2=(com.apple.loginwindow\ LoginHook '" /L*/P*/loginw*' "'tell app \"System Events\" to get properties of login items'|tr , \\\n" 'L*/Ca*/com.ap*.Saf*/E*/* -d 1 -name In*t -exec '"${c1[14]}"' :CFBundleDisplayName" {} \;|sort|uniq' '~ $TMPDIR.. $ -flags +sappnd,schg,uappnd,uchg -o ! -user $UID -o ! -perm -600 $' '.??* -path .Trash -prune -o -type d -name *.app -print -prune' :${p[35]}\" :Label\" '{/,}L*/{Con,Pref}* -type f ! -size 0 -name *.plist -exec plutil -s {} \;' "-f'%N: %l' Desktop L*/Keyc*" therm sysload boot-args status " -F '\$Time \$(RefProc): \$Message' -k Sender kernel -k Message Req 'bad |Beac|caug|corru|dead[^bl]|FAIL|fail|GPU |hfs: Ru|inval|jnl:|last value [1-9]|n Cause: -|NVDA$|pagin|proc: t|Roamed|rror|ssert|Thrott|tim(ed? ?|ing )o|WARN' -k Message Rne 'Goog|ksadm|Roame|SMC:|suhel| VALI|ver-r|xpma' -o -o -k Sender fseventsd -k Message Req SL -o -k Sender Req launchd -k Message Req de: " '-du -n DEV -n EDEV 1 10' 'acrx -o comm,ruid,%cpu' '-t1 10 1' '-f -pfc /var/db/r*/com.apple.*.{BS,Bas,Es,J,OSXU,Rem,up}*.bom' '{/,}L*/Lo*/Diag* -type f -regex .\*[cght] ! -name .?\* ! -name \*ag \( -exec grep -lq "^Thread c" {} \; -exec printf \* \; -o -true $ -execdir stat -f:%Sc:%N -t%F {} \;|sort -t: -k2 |tail -n'${p[38]} '/S*/*/Ca*/*xpc* >&- ||echo No' '-L /{S*/,}L*/StartupItems -type f -exec file {} +' '-L /S*/L*/{C*/Sec*A,Ex}* {/,}L*/{A*d,Ca*/*/Ex,Co{mpon,reM},Ex,In{p,ter},iTu*/*P,Keyb,Mail/B,Pr*P,Qu*T,Scripti,Sec,Servi,Spo,Widg}* -path \\*s/Resources -prune -o -type f -name Info.plist' '/usr/lib -type f -name *.dylib' `awk "${s[31]}"<<<${p[23]}` "/e*/{auto,{cron,fs}tab,hosts,{[lp],sy}*.conf,mach_i*/*,pam.d/*,ssh{,d}_config,*.local} {,/usr/local}/etc/periodic/*/* /L*/P*{,/*}/com.a*.{Bo,sec*.ap}*t {/S*/,/,}L*/Lau*/*t .launchd.conf" list getenv /Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf\ globalstate --proxy '-n get default' -I --dns -getdnsservers\ "${p[N5]}" -getinfo\ "${p[N5]}" -P -m\ / '' -n1 '-R -l1 -n1 -o prt -stats command,uid,prt' '--regexp --only-files --files com.apple.pkg.*|sort|uniq' -kl -l -s\ / '-R -l1 -n1 -o mem -stats command,uid,mem' '+c0 -i4TCP:0-1023' com.apple.dashboard\ layer-gadgets '-d /L*/Mana*/$USER&&echo On' '-app Safari WebKitDNSPrefetchingEnabled' "+c0 -l|awk '{print(\$1,\$3)}'|sort|uniq -c|sort -n|tail -1|awk '{print(\$2,\$3,\$1)}'" -m 'L*/{Con*/*/Data/L*/,}Pref* -type f -size 0c -name *.plist.???????|wc -l' kern.memorystatus_vm_pressure_level );N1=${#c2[@]};for j in {0..9};do c2[N1+j]=SP${p[j]}DataType;done;N2=${#c2[@]};for j in 0 1;do c2[N2+j]="-n ' syscall::'${p[33+j]}':return { @out[execname,uid]=sum(arg0) } tick-10sec { trunc(@out,1);exit(0);} '";done;l=(Restricted\ files Hidden\ apps 'Elapsed time (s)' POST Battery Safari\ extensions Bad\ plists 'High file counts' User Heat System\ load boot\ args FileVault Diagnostic\ reports Log 'Free space (MiB)' 'Swap (MiB)' Activity 'CPU per process' Login\ hook 'I/O per process' Mach\ ports kexts Daemons Agents XPC\ cache Startup\ items Admin\ access Root\ access Bundles dylibs Apps Font\ issues Inserted\ dylibs Firewall Proxies DNS TCP/IP Wi-Fi Profiles Root\ crontab User\ crontab 'Global login items' 'User login items' Spotlight Memory Listeners Widgets Parental\ Controls Prefetching SATA Descriptors App\ extensions Lockfiles Memory\ pressure );N3=${#l[@]};for i in 0 1 2;do l[N3+i]=${p[5+i]};done;N4=${#l[@]};for j in 0 1;do l[N4+j]="Current ${p[29+j]}stream data";done;A0() { id -G|grep -qw 80;v[1]=$?;((v[1]==0))&&sudo true;v[2]=$?;v[3]=`date +%s`;clear >&-;date '+Start time: %T %D%n';};for i in 0 1;do eval ' A'$((1+i))'() { v=` eval "${c1[$1]} ${c2[$2]}"|'${c1[30+i]}' "${s[$3]}" `;[[ "$v" ]];};A'$((3+i))'() { v=` while read i;do [[ "$i" ]]&&eval "${c1[$1]} ${c2[$2]}" \"$i\"|'${c1[30+i]}' "${s[$3]}";done<<<"${v[$4]}" `;[[ "$v" ]];};A'$((5+i))'() { v=` while read i;do '${c1[30+i]}' "${s[$1]}" "$i";done<<<"${v[$2]}" `;[[ "$v" ]];};';done;A7(){ v=$((`date +%s`-v[3]));};B2(){ v[$1]="$v";};for i in 0 1;do eval ' B'$i'() { v=;((v['$((i+1))']==0))||{ v=No;false;};};B'$((3+i))'() { v[$2]=`'${c1[30+i]}' "${s[$3]}"<<<"${v[$1]}"`;} ';done;B5(){ v[$1]="${v[$1]}"$'\n'"${v[$2]}";};B6() { v=` paste -d: <(printf "${v[$1]}") <(printf "${v[$2]}")|awk -F: ' {printf("'"${f[$3]}"'",$1,$2)} ' `;};B7(){ v=`grep -Fv "${v[$1]}"<<<"$v"`;};C0() { [[ "$v" ]]&&sed -E "$s"<<<"$v";};C1() { [[ "$v" ]]&&printf "${f[$1]}" "${l[$2]}" "$v"|sed -E "$s";};C2() { v=`echo $v`;[[ "$v" != 0 ]]&&C1 0 $1;};C3() { v=`sed -E "${s[63]}"<<<"$v"`&&C1 1 $1;};for i in 1 2;do for j in 0 2 3;do eval D$i$j'(){ A'$i' $1 $2 $3; C'$j' $4;};';done;done;{ A0;D20 0 $((N1+1)) 2;D10 0 $N1 1;B0;C2 27;B0&&! B1&&C2 28;D12 15 37 25 8;A1 0 $((N1+2)) 3;C0;D13 0 $((N1+3)) 4 3;D23 0 $((N1+4)) 5 4;D13 0 $((N1+9)) 59 50;for i in 0 1 2;do D13 0 $((N1+5+i)) 6 $((N3+i));done;D13 1 10 7 9;D13 1 11 8 10;D22 2 12 9 11;D12 3 13 10 12;D23 4 19 44 13;D23 5 14 12 14;D22 6 36 13 15;D22 38 52 66 54;D22 7 37 14 16;D23 8 15 38 17;D22 9 16 16 18;B1&&{ D22 35 49 61 51;D22 11 17 17 20;for i in 0 1;do D22 28 $((N2+i)) 45 $((N4+i));done;};D22 12 44 54 45;D22 12 39 15 21;A1 13 40 18;B2 4;B3 4 0 19;A3 14 6 32 0;B4 0 5 11;A1 17 41 20;B7 5;C3 22;B4 4 6 21;A3 14 7 32 6;B4 0 7 11;B3 4 0 22;A3 14 6 32 0;B4 0 8 11;B5 7 8;B1&&{ A2 19 26 23;B7 7;C3 23;};A2 18 26 23;B7 7;C3 24;D13 4 21 24 26;B4 4 12 26;B3 4 13 27;A1 4 22 29;B7 12;B2 14;A4 14 6 52 14;B2 15;B6 14 15 4;B3 0 0 30;C3 29;A1 4 23 27;B7 13;C3 30;B3 4 0 65;A3 14 6 32 0;B4 0 16 11;A1 39 50 64;B7 16;C3 52;D13 24 24 32 31;D13 25 37 32 33;A2 23 18 28;B2 16;A2 16 25 33;B7 16;B3 0 0 34;B2 21;A6 47 21&&C0;B1&&{ D13 21 0 32 19;D13 10 42 32 40;D22 29 35 46 39;};D23 14 1 62 42;D12 34 43 53 44;D12 22 20 32 25;D22 0 $((N1+8)) 51 32;D13 4 8 41 6;D12 26 28 35 34;D13 27 29 36 35;A2 27 32 39&&{ B2 19;A2 33 33 40;B2 20;B6 19 20 3;};C2 36;D23 33 34 42 37;B1&&D23 35 45 55 46;D23 32 31 43 38;D12 36 47 32 48;D13 20 42 32 41;D13 37 2 48 43;D13 4 5 32 1;D13 4 3 60 5;D12 26 48 49 49;B3 4 22 57;A1 26 46 56;B7 22;B3 0 0 58;C3 47;D22 4 4 50 0;D12 4 51 32 53;D23 22 9 37 7;A7;C2 2;} 2>/dev/null|pbcopy;exit 2>&-
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
8. Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Click anywhere in the Terminal window and paste by pressing command-V. The text you pasted should vanish immediately. If it doesn't, press the return key.
9. If you see an error message in the Terminal window such as "Syntax error" or "Event not found," enter
exec bash
and press return. Then paste the script again.
10. If you're logged in as an administrator, you'll be prompted for your login password. Nothing will be displayed when you type it. You will not see the usual dots in place of typed characters. Make sure caps lock is off. Type carefully and then press return. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you make three failed attempts to enter the password, the test will run anyway, but it will produce less information. In most cases, the difference is not important. If you don't know the password, or if you prefer not to enter it, press the key combination control-C or just press return three times at the password prompt. Again, the script will still run.
If you're not logged in as an administrator, you won't be prompted for a password. The test will still run. It just won't do anything that requires administrator privileges.
11. The test may take a few minutes to run, depending on how many files you have and the speed of the computer. A computer that's abnormally slow may take longer to run the test. While it's running, there will be nothing in the Terminal window and no indication of progress. Wait for the line
[Process completed]
to appear. If you don't see it within half an hour or so, the test probably won't complete in a reasonable time. In that case, close the Terminal window and report what happened. No harm will be done.
12. When the test is complete, quit Terminal. The results will have been copied to the Clipboard automatically. They are not shown in the Terminal window. Please don't copy anything from there. All you have to do is start a reply to this comment and then paste by pressing command-V again.
At the top of the results, there will be a line that begins with the words "Start time." If you don't see that, but instead see a mass of gibberish, you didn't wait for the "Process completed" message to appear in the Terminal window. Please wait for it and try again.
If any private information, such as your name or email address, appears in the results, anonymize it before posting. Usually that won't be necessary.
13. When you post the results, you might see an error message on the web page: "You have included content in your post that is not permitted," or "You are not authorized to post." That's a bug in the forum software. Please post the test results on Pastebin, then post a link here to the page you created.
14. This is a public forum, and others may give you advice based on the results of the test. They speak only for themselves, and I don't necessarily agree with them.
Copyright © 2014 by Linc Davis. As the sole author of this work, I reserve all rights to it except as provided in the Use Agreement for the Apple Support Communities website ("ASC"). Readers of ASC may copy it for their own personal use. Neither the whole nor any part may be redistributed.

Won't boot from HDD

I made the mistake of running a Linux Live DVD on my MacPro 1.1 to see if it was as great as they say. When I took dvd out and reboot my machine I get an error message saying no boot disk found ( I think this is a resdual message from the Linux dvd). Make a long story short. My Mac will reboot into the Linux dvd, it will boot from a Windows 7 disk but it won't boot from either of my Snow Leopard install disks. Why is that? OH, and while it's in the press any key error mode, the usb keyboard won't work, no matter which usb port it's plugged into. How do I get the boot order to find the HDD without an OSX disk running?

Some additional information. I eventually pulled the HDD and plugged it into my iMac 27". Diskwarrior said the directories were damaged. I then supposedly repaired them. To test the drive I had the iMac reboot to that drive & it reboot fine. However when I plugged it back into the MacPro I got the grey screen with the Apple then it flickered back & forth between the Apple, a folder icon with a question mark and the universal NO icon (the circle with the diagonal slash). I'm wondering if the LINUX dvd rewrote the GUID partition somehow?

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

My Satellite C50-B won't boot from HDD

Machine Details:-
Model Number: PSCMLA-03F07Q
Serial Number: XE343127P
Computer won't boot from harddrive. No error messages, just Toshiba splash screen at end of self test.
A couple of times a reinstall of the operating system seemed to correct the problem but then it would go again, now the problem is consistent.
I've narrowed down possibilities to a BIOS fault, reasons-
System boots from USB without any problems. Installing of operating systems proceeds with no errors. Harddrive SMART data reports a perfectly healthy harddrive. Memcheck returns no errors.
The obvious solution is to reload the BIOS, just resetting it achieves nothing. But here's the problem.
The updated BIOS 1.4 that the Australian website offers is a Windows program and the computer can't boot Windows.
Obvious answer is to use a bootable USB stick with a "live" operating system on it but all of these systems are Linux and the BIOS update is a Windows program. So much for intelligent solutions.
Downloaded Bios version 1.7 from European site but the iso inside that rar file is empty, 25 Mb in size but nothing in it according to Linux. Tried running it's program on a Win7 64bit computer and it returns an error that it could not find the correct iso file.
I've submitted a support request by email to Toshiba but they reckon it could take 3 days to get a reply so I thought I'd ask here as well. Can anyone please point me to a working copy of the latest BIOS update disk for a Satelite C50-B laptop? Please note - this model doesn't have a CD drive so the iso must be compatable with USB boot.
Cheers,
Andrew.

OK, found the answer.
Bios was corrupted but not critically so, turns out that this laptop should never have been able to boot linux in the first place. It's only because of the corrupted bios that I got away with it a few times. Ended up getting a valid copy from a blog in Russia.
Toshiba used to be a byword for quality in the computer world but this is definately no longer the case due to poor (cheap) new quality control practices. Also it seems that Toshiba is no longer really concerned with making computers, they're more interested in selling Windows and GE Insurance Policies disguised as extended warrantees.
From now on I will definately be making sure that my customers understand the troubles they can have when buying Toshiba Laptops.
As for running Linux, I'm including this so that it will help other poor unfortunates who thought they were buying a computer instead of just a Windows platform.
The problem started with Microsoft, their proprietry MBR boot system was no longer valid in a modern world and they had to adopt the open source GPT partitioning system with UEFI boot, but in typical Microsoft fashion they couldn't stick to the widely accepted standard conventions for how the EFI boot partition should be laid out. And Toshiba is Microsoft's new "friend with benefits" so instead of sending Microsoft back to the drawing board they've rewritten their bios so that it looks for the Microsoft Win8.1 EFI boot partition and ignores all others.
The quick answer is to edit your boot partition after install and make it look like Microsoft's. Please note that you don't have to do this with other brands of computer, only Toshiba.
Here's a link with full instructions including pictures, it's written for Ubuntu but is easily adapted to almost any other operating system.
http://linuxontoshiba.blogspot.de/2014/05/getting-ubuntu-1404-to-boot-from.html?showComment=1410953307121
Hope that helps a few people before it gets deleted.
Cheers,
Andrew.

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 any HDD or install disc

Hi everybody.
This morning my iMac just didn't wanna boot up, it powers on and the start sound plays but nothing more, all white screen.
Tried holding OPT at start, my mouse cursor becomes visible and active but none of my startup drives show. Also tried booting from both SL and leopard install DVD, it reads the disc for a minute or two then spits it out, nothing on the screen, all white.
Tried resetting PRAM, holding down CMDOPT+PR, it reboots but same thing after that.
My internal HDD crashed recently so I've been booting from my external drive which has SL installed. This has worked fine unitl now, last night I shut the machine down it did take an extra two minutes to power off which was out of the ordinary.
All help appreciated which can avoid me from sending it in for repair.

Thanks for the reply.
Since my internal drive had been failing I guessed it had to be the culprit and right I was. After I swapped the HDD (plus swiped the interior clean) my iMac was like new again plus I didn't have to send it away.
But what I can't quite understand is why a bad internal drive which was not in use would hinder the mac from booting from the install DVD all of a sudden.

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

Early 2008 mac pro won't boot from hdd when ssd is installed

I have Mountain Lion 10.8.3 installed on my 1TB HDD in my early 2008 mac pro. That is the only OS install on my mac. I have an OWC SSD formatted but left as an empty drive that I am trying to use but when it's installed my mac hangs on the blank gray screen.
My mac cold boots fine and runs fine when the SSD is *not* installed. When I shut down and put the SSD into a drive bay the mac does seem to boot ok the first time, but when the computer is off for a while it will not boot. It just hangs on the blank gray screen (no apple logo). As soon as I pull out the SSD, the computer boots fine and runs fine again. I am not trying to boot off the SSD, I am booting off the HDD. The correct drive (1tb hdd) is selected in startup disk.
OWC has been helping me and I have tested 3 SSD's. So it does not appear to be a problem with their drive.
The mac will boot into safe mode with the SSD installed. It will boot if I choose the boot drive with the option key at startup.
Mountain Lion was clean installed.
Could it be some sort of library pref or cache issue?
Any recommendations on what to try?

A HT does not find a lot of errors.
It doesn't look for bad sectors or directory or file problems.
Clone your SSD now that you have a clean OS and has the Apple updates on it. Before you make changes.
Install TRIM Enabler 2.2+ on it and any boot volume, to enable TRIM and so that Disk Utility's Repair Disk will trim cells. Mountain Lion Recovery won't which is a shame, so...
Clone and keep bootable backup clone of your system to use for maintenance.
A really bad directory on a system drive will cause interference from booting.
SSDs really need extra care, and even with TRIM, to be repaired from time to time and couple times a year, to do an erase and restore from a current image.
Of course Mac OS system even iwth apps is small and doesn't need to have any data or media and fits on 120GB usually just fine and still have a good enough amount free so TRIM and Garbage Collection can work properly and not get low on free pages. But 20GB free should be the minimum free, and better to have more, at least whatever total amount is written out in a month.

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.

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

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