My 27" iMac (2009) won't boot OSX from the internal drive

Here's a fun problem. After installing Sophos anti-virus and starting a (VERY slow) full scan, a day or two later I found my iMac frozen at the screensaver. It was completely unresponsive so I did a hard reboot, at which point it got as far as starting to boot Lion (apple logo on screen, spinning indicator showing) before stalling indefinitely in that state with the indicator spinning.
I restarted and booted from the recovery partition, launched disk utility, and discovered that the SMART status of the drive was "failing". The machine would still boot from the recovery partition and my boot camp partition, but I assumed that the disk failing was why the OSX partition wouldn't boot (the recovery partition worked, as did the windows 7 bootcamp partition). I replaced the factory-installed internal HDD with another of the same make, model, and capacity (Seagate 1TB), and performed a restore from the Time Machine backup on my Drobo.
The result was the same as the original problem - it wouldn't boot, hung with the indicator spinning. Thinking that the Sophos scan was somehow responsible (in-progress when the last TM backup was made) I tried restoring to a backup a few days older, (to the best of my recall from BEFORE I downloaded Sophos) only to have the same result.
Anyone have any ideas? I made a clean install of Lion (using the recovery partition on my old internal HDD, now connected externally via USB) to an external drive while I was waiting for the replacement hard disk to arrive, and it boots fine from that. I haven't tried a clean install to the internal HDD yet, as I'd obviously prefer to recover my installed apps as they were before, that being the point of a Time Machine backup, right?

You have a serious drive issue that likely can't be repaired that way.
Follow the data recovery efforts here, your drive still works and thus data can be recovered, won't be easy
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3172
If you have your data off the machine, to a storage drive (or earlier with TM)
then hold command r keys and use Disk Utility to Erase the Lion Partiton with Zero option, and reinstall Lion from Apple's servers.
use the same name (important), different password ok Software Update fully
install your programs from fresh orignal sources and return files into their respective folders
once your stable, read the backup proceedures here etc.
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3045
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro?view=documents
note, don't move your computer while it's operating

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ive recently update to Yosemite, ever since my Mac won't boot up from the grey screen, I've checked on the utilities and disk can not be repaired. I'm gutted is it dead?.........how can I solve this......help please
<Re-Titled By Host>

Did you mean Command + Option + R for internet recovery?
The only key commands I know that involve P is a PRAM reset:
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH11243?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
Or maybe I am missing or misunderstanding something?

I just used "Erase" via "Find my phone" to erase and rest my MBP. It's caused my MBP to be locked. I entered correct 4 digit PIN and it seemed to accept it, but it won't allow use of the internal drive. Yosemite loaded. Anyone else had same problem?

I just used "Erase" via "Find my phone" to erase and reset my MBP. It's caused my MBP to be locked. I entered correct 4 digit PIN and it seemed to accept it, but it won't allow use of the internal drive. Yosemite loaded. Anyone else had same problem?

Greetings Fraser Alexander,
Erasing your Mac shouldn't harm your internal hard drive but erasing does clear Yosemite and everything else off of it. Are you not able to restore it with your Time Machine backup?
iCloud: Erase your device
If you erase then find your Mac, you can restore the information on the Mac using a Time Machine backup. For more information, see the Apple Support article Recover your entire system. If you set an EFI firmware password on your Mac before it was lost, then erase it and later find it, you may need to take your Mac to an authorized repair center to unlock it before you can use it again.
OS X Yosemite: Recover your entire system
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How do I back up my MacBook Pro from an external hard drive if my macbook won't boot up from the white start up screen? HELP!

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Ok, to be sure I understand what's going on. You were able to boot the Macbook from the existing "damaged" internal drive, and it has been backed up to the internal.
If that is correct, your internal drive is working. Just to be sure, try booting with the R key down. Then run Disk Utility to repair the internal drive. That drive may in fact be useable.
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Since today i have a strange problem booting into Mac. This is how it started out:
I was inside of Mac, and decided to reboot to Windows, to play a match of MW2. I forgot to use the ALT button, so Mac was already booting. I used the on/off switch to turn it off before i started it again. This time i did use the ALT button, and i booted into Windows. I decided later on to boot back to OSX, and it didn't give me any problems.
I wanted to mount a DVD ISO file to watch, and when i mounted it my user account got logged off. I logged back in and tried it again, same problem.
I decided to reboot the system, but this time something wierd happend. Along with the Apple logo i got a grey progress bar, wich went till about 25%. After this bar dissapeared it was just the Apple logo with the rotating gear, and it didn't go any further.
I tried using the installdisk to repair my OSX partition, but whenever i try to repair i get the following:
Repairing volume completed.
Updating startup support partitions where necessary.
Error: Diskaid cannot repair this disk
(original messages were in dutch, so in translated it. Could be different from the english messages)
Diskaid also shows my OSX partition as grey, instead of the normal black. I can't seem to be able to activate tis volume in Diskaid
After this i tried running Apple Hardware Test, and it didn't give me any errors.
The strange thing is that Windows(bootcamp ofcourse) runs fine. It's Mac OSX that cannot boot.
I don't have backups, and no Time Machine either. Is there a way to get my OSX back up again without having to reinstall everything? Especially because of certain installed Audio Units. I don't have the original license codes anymore of same AU's, so it would be a real pain if i need to reinstall this again.
I'm using this mac:
MacBook Pro 15"2,66GHz mid 2009
500GB 7200RPM Hard Disk
Hope you can help, i really need this one to be back up as soon as possible!
Thanks in advance!

Your options are:
1. DiskWarrior to rebuild the directory. Or,
2. Erase & Install

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Thanks very much for the suggestions! I tried your method of booting to the install CD while holding option (alt), and then running Disk Utility to repair the disk and the permissions. Even though it still told me the drive didn't need repairing, there were more permissions that needed repairing when booting this way (as opposed to when booting while holding the C key.)
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OK. It booted up perfectly this time. I'm not quite sure why that worked, though. Anyone care to illuminate me as to why booting while holding option (alt) let Disk Utility do what it needed to, while booting while holding C didn't?
At this point I'm just curious. My problem has been solved!
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My 27" iMac (2009) won't boot OSX from the internal drive

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