Yosemite White Screen Boot Fail

Hi,
I have a big problem. After my mac updated via mac app store I cant start anymore.
My system is yosemite.
When i start the mac i can hear the apple sound and see the apple logo. But then after the progress bar it starts again. It seems my mac stucks in a boot loop.
I took my hard drive out of the computer and tried several boot options like shift etc.
In the end i tried the internet recovery method. It loads everything but when it should come to the OS Window i get the White Screen (of death).
Can i solve this or should i go to a repair shop? I hope you can help me. Thanks.

Update: I plugged my HDD at another mac and tested it with the Disc Utility App and it seems to work fine.
Could the HDD to Motherboard Cable be the problem?

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White screen, boots only in safe boot

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After running the Lion upgrade, I received an error that said Lion could not be installed becuase a recovery disc could not be created. The computer then restarted to a white screen. I've tried resetting PRAM, unpugging, and booting from a Snow Leopard CD, but I can't get past the white screen. All external drives are unplugged. Any ideas?

I can't speak to iPhoto (did you ask about iPhoto?), but:
The version of Quicken 2007 for Lion is 16.1.1, which now offers an update to version 16.1.2 for Mountain Lion (among other fixes).
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Intermittent failure to boot, flashing question mark or white screen

So, I've had two MacBooks with similar problems (I am a Mac consultant). The first one would intermittently boot to a white screen, often enough to be annoying. This current one is occasionally booting to a flashing question mark. My first thought is, of course, the hard drive, but in both cases the hard drive tests fine using SMART Utility, which is usually great at giving advance warning when a drive starts experiencing hardware errors.
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I will reseat the drive, which is all Apple could suggest. I just wonder if anybody else had experienced something like this and can offer any information about what might be going on.

Thanks for the reply. Aside from finding that holding the mouse button down at boot might cause a flashing question mark, I already knew all that. I will ask the owner if she is leaning on the trackpad button when she starts up her computer in the morning.
I've already reset the power manager and the PRAM; we'll see if that makes any difference. The puzzling thing here is that the problem is intermittent.
I also need to ask her if, when the computer does boot to the question mark, there has been a chime first. Somehow I think there has to be, for the system to have gotten as far as looking for a boot drive. I couldn't find anything useful in the logs; not surprising, since if it can't find a drive to boot to, it won't have anything to write a log to.
Again, the mystery is why the failure to boot is intermittent. If it happened every time, I'd know what to do!
Thanks
cavenewt

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Error 2000-2009 (2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2009, and so on)
If you experience this issue on a Mac, disconnect third-party devices, hubs, spare cables, displays, reset the SMC, and then try to restore. If you are using a Windows computer, remove all USB devices and spare cables other than your keyboard, mouse, and the device, restart the computer, and try to restore. If that does not resolve the issue, try the USB issue-resolution steps and articles listed for Error 1604 above. If the issue persists, it may be related to conflicting security software.

Failed boot after update - White screen after bong

Hi, i've an iMac with snow leopard installed.
Yesterday i did a software update that included a reboot.
after that and after the standard boing the system stopped on a white screen.
I've tried using the snow leopard dvd, nothing, pressing "c" with the dvd, inside, nothing, pressing alt, nothing, pressing Shift, success!!!
The system normally logged in but after a new reboot, that i've decided, the system stopped again on the annoying white screen.
I've tried again pressing shift but now anything happened!!!
Help me please!!!
thanks

Solved!
I unplugged the ac and waited for 20 second.
After that i rebooted pressing altcmd+pr. After the second boing the system rebooted regularly.
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Now it's ok,
thanks to everyone.

White screen after Apple charging screen, only loads OS X in Safe Boot

Well, since yesterday, I have been annoyed because of a problem that my iMac has:
On booting up the Mac, it does the chime and appears the Apple logo and its loading bar, and begins loading.
Everything's ok, isn't it?
Well, problem is about to happen... You know that when it's loading, at some time the screen will become white, and after a second or two, cursor may appear and so is the loading bar.
So... it doesn't appear, and freezes screen at the white screen.
There's a case when you are able to make it work: Safe Mode.
Things I tried:
Entering Verbose Mode on load: Just before the white screen, nearly 50 lines of BUG appears.
Entering recovery console mode (cmd + s), I thought putting fsck -fy and reboot may solve this problem. But nope.
Resetting NVRAM and SMC.
Definitely the only thing it works is safe mode, but in this mode, forget about Flash, NTFS and sound at all .
So, here's some information about my Mac (obviously the some you will need, not the serial, tsk):
I was thinking that Radeon is guilty of this mess, but... What should I try now?

If you have all your data backed up somewhere then you aren't going to lose anything by re-installed Yosemite.
If anything you will have a clean slicker system that you can restore using your backed up data.
If the installation fails at any point it could indicate some faulty hardware.
Good Luck!

IMac not booting/finding HDD? White screen on Boot

Hi
Upgraded to Yosemite on launch day and the iMac has been fine up until last Monday.
We had a power cut and the iMac was on at the time. Since then, any time I try to switch it on I get a white screen.
I've created a Yosemite boot drive on my memory stick and it finds it. Gone into Disk Utility and it says the drive is damaged and backup any data is can.
Are the power cut and HDD failure connected or could it be something to do with Yosemite?
Its asking me to backup the data on the HDD but is this possible if I cant boot into it?
Thanks

I reopened the imac, removed the optical drive (hdd was already out). Restarted with my USB external HDD connected, nothing happened, white screen still. I then reconnected the friend's USB HDD also and restarted and got the screen to choose a startup disk.
Computer then boots fine from my external hdd. Turn it off, reinstall my HDD and optical drive.
Turn it on again and am greeting with the same blank white screen again.
I then remove the optical drive again and am able to boot from the internal drive. BUT when I go to system preferences to change startup disk, if I check the internal drive or the external USB drive and click reset I got the error "building boot caches on boot helper partition failed". I have no idea what is going on. I repair permissions several times.
I then restart the computer several times and it seems to restart consistently from the internal drive. I then put the optical drive back in and it now appears to be working.
The original external drive I booted from was a 10.5 macbook pro cloned drive. So I don't know if that somehow corrupted my 10.8 imac drive or some firmware that made it such that it wouldn't boot.
What a hassle.
And for anyone who cares and has read this far, I am living in a remote town in Mongolia at the time and didn't have any suction cups to remove the front glass from the imac. I do have an iSesamo tool to open up ipod touches and such, and was able to use that to get the front glass off.
If anyone has an idea of what happened I'd be interested in hearing.

IMac suddenly shows white screen after update Yosemite to 10.10.1

The day after I installed the update(10.10.1) for Yosemite, regularly my iMac suddenly stops working by showing a white screen. After 10 seconds, the iMac reboots automatically and again shows a white screen. Than, it stops. No action. No noise. I'm always obliged to stop the iMac by pressing the start button and restarting by holding the 'shift' key otherwise I have to look at a white screen again! In the save modus, I can work(typing this story) and restart the iMac. After a while, the whole show starts again. What can I do? Installing Yosemite again and whiteout the update? Can I undo the update? This once, I made no backup before the update(Murphy's law). Any suggestion will do!

Try these in order testing your system after each to see if it's back to normal:
1. a. Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM
    b. Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
2. Restart the computer in Safe Mode, then restart again, normally. If this doesn't help, then:
Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the Utilities menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
3. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
4. Reinstall Yosemite: Reboot from the Recovery HD. Select Reinstall OS X from the Utilities menu, and click on the Continue button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
            because it is three times faster than wireless.
5. Reinstall Yosemite from Scratch:
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
How to Clean Install OS X Yosemite
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
            because it is three times faster than wireless.

After reading and resetting everything with Keyboard I still get blank white screen. The only way I can boot to Mavericks is unplug power cord, push and hold power button while plugging power cord in. Fans at full speed.

After reading and resetting everything with Keyboard I still get blank white screen on 2nd? page of boot. The only way I can boot to Mavericks is unplug power cord, push and hold power button while plugging power cord in. Fans run at full speed, machine boots then runs normal except the dvdrw will not . The mid 2011 IMAC had the same problem with LION. I changed hard drives, formatted, and installed a clean install of latest os x mavericks. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
EtreCheck version: 1.9.15 (52)
Report generated August 30, 2014 at 6:56:41 PM EDT
Hardware Information: ?
    iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011) (Verified)
    iMac - model: iMac12,1
    1 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 CPU: 4 cores
    4 GB RAM
Video Information: ?
    AMD Radeon HD 6750M - VRAM: 512 MB
        iMac 1920 x 1080
System Software: ?
    OS X 10.9.4 (13E28) - Uptime: 0 days 0:16:53
Disk Information: ?
    ST3120026AS disk0 : (120.03 GB)
    S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified
        EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
        Untitled (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 119.17 GB (87.12 GB free)
        Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB
    HL-DT-STDVDRW GA32N
USB Information: ?
    Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)
    CHICONY USB NetVista Full Width Keyboard
    Apple Inc. BRCM2046 Hub
        Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
    Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver
    Apple Internal Memory Card Reader
Thunderbolt Information: ?
    Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus
Gatekeeper: ?
    Anywhere
Kernel Extensions: ?
    [loaded]    com.nvidia.CUDA (1.1.0) Support
    [loaded]    com.sophos.kext.sav (9.0.61 - SDK 10.7) Support
    [loaded]    com.sophos.nke.swi (9.0.53 - SDK 10.8) Support
Startup Items: ?
    CUDA: Path: /System/Library/StartupItems/CUDA
    FanControlDaemon: Path: /Library/StartupItems/FanControlDaemon
Launch Daemons: ?
    [loaded]    com.adobe.fpsaud.plist Support
    [running]    com.arcsoft.eservutil.plist Support
    [running]    com.bjango.istatmenusdaemon.plist Support
    [loaded]    com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist Support
    [running]    com.sophos.autoupdate.plist Support
    [running]    com.sophos.configuration.plist Support
    [running]    com.sophos.intercheck.plist Support
    [running]    com.sophos.notification.plist Support
    [running]    com.sophos.scan.plist Support
    [running]    com.sophos.sxld.plist Support
    [running]    com.sophos.webd.plist Support
Launch Agents: ?
    [running]    com.arcsoft.esinter.plist Support
    [running]    com.bjango.istatmenusagent.plist Support
    [loaded]    com.nvidia.CUDASoftwareUpdate.plist Support
    [loaded]    com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist Support
    [running]    com.sophos.uiserver.plist Support
User Login Items: ?
    Macs Fan Control
    Firefox
Internet Plug-ins: ?
    FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 14.0.0.176 - SDK 10.6 Support
    Flash Player: Version: 14.0.0.176 - SDK 10.6 Support
    QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3
    JavaAppletPlugin: Version: Java 7 Update 67 Check version
    Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9
Audio Plug-ins: ?
    BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9
    AirPlay: Version: 2.0 - SDK 10.9
    AppleAVBAudio: Version: 203.2 - SDK 10.9
    iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9
iTunes Plug-ins: ?
    Quartz Composer Visualizer: Version: 1.4 - SDK 10.9
3rd Party Preference Panes: ?
    CUDA Preferences Support
    Fan Control Support
    Flash Player Support
    Java Support
Time Machine: ?
    Time Machine not configured!
Top Processes by CPU: ?
         1%    WindowServer
         1%    fontd
         0%    firefox
         0%    SystemUIServer
         0%    SophosWebIntelligence
Top Processes by Memory: ?
    229 MB    firefox
    156 MB    SophosScanD
    152 MB    InterCheck
    131 MB    com.apple.IconServicesAgent
    115 MB    SophosAntiVirus
Virtual Memory Information: ?
    424 MB    Free RAM
    1.53 GB    Active RAM
    1.37 GB    Inactive RAM
    699 MB    Wired RAM
    1.26 GB    Page-ins
    0 B    Page-outs

I'd start by getting rid of the following software responsible for these extensions.
Kernel Extensions: ?
    [loaded]    com.nvidia.CUDA (1.1.0) Support
    [loaded]    com.sophos.kext.sav (9.0.61 - SDK 10.7) Support
    [loaded]    com.sophos.nke.swi (9.0.53 - SDK 10.8) Support
Startup Items: ?
    CUDA: Path: /System/Library/StartupItems/CUDA
    FanControlDaemon: Path: /Library/StartupItems/FanControlDaemon
Use the uninstaller provided with the Sophos software. You can uninstall CUDA via the preference pane. Be sure you remove the com.nvidia.CUDA extension which is located in the /System/Library/Extensions/ folder. Not sure if Fan Control has an uninstaller so you will have to do it manually:
Uninstalling Software: The Basics
Most OS X applications are completely self-contained "packages" that can be uninstalled by simply dragging the application to the Trash. Applications may create preference files that are stored in the /Home/Library/Preferences/ folder. Although they do nothing once you delete the associated application, they do take up some disk space. If you want you can look for them in the above location and delete them, too.
Some applications may install an uninstaller program that can be used to remove the application. In some cases the uninstaller may be part of the application's installer, and is invoked by clicking on a Customize button that will appear during the install process.
Some applications may install components in the /Home/Library/Applications Support/ folder. You can also check there to see if the application has created a folder. You can also delete the folder that's in the Applications Support folder. Again, they don't do anything but take up disk space once the application is trashed.
Some applications may install a startupitem or a Log In item. Startupitems are usually installed in the /Library/StartupItems/ folder and less often in the /Home/Library/StartupItems/ folder. Log In Items are set in the Accounts preferences. Open System Preferences, click on the Accounts icon, then click on the LogIn Items tab. Locate the item in the list for the application you want to remove and click on the "-" button to delete it from the list.
Some software use startup daemons or agents that are a new feature of the OS. Look for them in /Library/LaunchAgents/ and /Library/LaunchDaemons/ or in /Home/Library/LaunchAgents/.
If an application installs any other files the best way to track them down is to do a Finder search using the application name or the developer name as the search term. Unfortunately Spotlight will not look in certain folders by default. You can modify Spotlight's behavior or use a third-party search utility, EasyFind, instead.
Some applications install a receipt in the /Library/Receipts/ folder. Usually with the same name as the program or the developer. The item generally has a ".pkg" extension. Be sure you also delete this item as some programs use it to determine if it's already installed.
There are many utilities that can uninstall applications. Here is a selection:
    1. AppZapper
    2. AppDelete
    3. Automaton
    4. Hazel
    5. AppCleaner
    6. CleanApp
    7. iTrash
    8. Amnesia
    9. Uninstaller
10. Spring Cleaning
For more information visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on removing software.
Be sure to remove your two Login Items. Finally do this:
Reinstall Lion, Mountain Lion, or Mavericks without erasing drive
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported then click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion, Mountain Lion, or Mavericks
OS X Mavericks- Reinstall OS X
OS X Mountain Lion- Reinstall OS X
OS X Lion- Reinstall Mac OS X
     Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet
                 if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

My MacBook pro will not start up. when I boot up, it stays on a white screen

I have a MacBook pro. My hard drive went out and I recently put a new one in it. Now when I Try to turn it on, it stays on a white screen and says loading but never does. I have Mac OS X install disc 1 and 2, and says when you put the cd in to hold down c, but every time I try, it just ejects the cd. Please help!!!Not sure of what operating system it has, or if it even has one. It had Mac OS X Snow Leopard. I am complete rookie to working on apple in general.

Reinstall Lion, Mountain Lion, or Mavericks without erasing drive
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported then click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
Reinstall Mountain Lion or Mavericks
OS X Mavericks- Reinstall OS X
OS X Mountain Lion- Reinstall OS X
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet
if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

After installing Yosemite my Imac just goes to a white screen and freezes, it has been there for almost 36 hours any ideas as to why it is taking so long?

I have downloaded Yosemite from the App store and I attempted to upgrade from OS X 10.9.5. It is stuck on a white screen with a moveable mouse pointer but that is it. I can't get Command + L to work, so I can see any progress that is being made and I have tried to force boot it twice. Each time I force boot the machine I get a progress bar that goes about half way across and then just a blank white screen. I have read on some blogs that patience is the best procedure for this freeze but I have been waiting for almost 36 hours now and nothing is happening. One thing I want to mention is I have VMWare installed with a virtual machine of 300gigs, could this be the cause of the hangup? My 27inch IMAC is about 3 or 4 years old with a terabyte hard drive and 32gigs of ram. I have unplugged everything from the back except the network cable. Is about 36 hours reasonable for an upgrade? Is there a way to cut my losses and revert back to OS X 10.9.5?

When you start your notebook press F8 to enter Advanced boot options.
Is Repair my computer option available?
If yes choose it and press ENTER. Follow the menu on the screen and when you will see System recovery options try to use System Restore option.
Do you have some important data saved on your notebook?
If not install OS again using HDD recovery option and after 2 hours you will have clean preinstalled OS and everything will be OK again.

TS1587 Hello, I downloaded an ntfs systemfile from tuxera and used it to convert a usb stick, my imac froze a while after so I turned it off the on and now I have blue vertical lines on boot up and the a white screen with lots of tine blue symbols, need h

Hello, I downloaded an ntfs systemfile from tuxera and used it to convert a usb stick so I could put more than the fat32 4gb on, my Imac froze a while after so I turned it off the on and now I have blue vertical lines on boot up and the a white screen with lots of tine blue symbols after, mouse pointer moves but thats about it.
Have used R and cmd to get a menu up but once I choose one of the four options my mouse is rendered useless and I cant get any further, have downloaded, to another usb stick recovery disk assisstant and am trying to use that in conjunction with the lion option on the previously mentioned screen, computer was responding really slowly and has now frozen on the terms of software license agreement (maybe the last hurdle!) can anyone pleeeeeease help!!!!!??????

It's likely that the boot drive is failing, or that there's some other hardware fault. Run the Apple Hardware Test.
Intel-based Macs: Using Apple Hardware Test
Even if the test is negative, you should make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store to have the machine tested more thoroughly.

Macbook won't boot past white screen

My girlfirend's 2009 macbook aluminum unibody ((Leopard 10.5.x) is having a problem booting up. Initially I ran Onyx on it and it said it needed a disk repair. I ran a quick hardware test and it came back ok. I ran Disk Utility off of the cd and it said the repair failed. I believe the message was "invalid node, repair or verify failed." I tried it 3 times. When I went to quit disk utility and restart, it stayed on the white screen with the spinning wheel for a few minutes then the screen went blank. I tried to restart several times, always the same. I have tried resetting PRAM. I tried starting in Safe Mode but it wouldn't. I finally went to reinstall the OS but when it gets to the screen where I have to choose a drive, there is no drive in the screen to select. I don't have Disk Warrior, so can't try that. I'm thinking to remove the hard drive and get the data off of it onto my computer, then to erase her drive and start from scratch. Does anyone have another idea before I go through this?Thanks for the help.

If your OS X installer disc is no longer usable then you can arrange to purchase a replacement by calling AppleCare Customer Service.
Have you tried reformatting the hard drive? If may not require replacement unless the drive has truly failed.
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

My iMacG5 will only boot to white screen, gray apple and spinning gear. Help?

My iMacG5 will only boot to white screen, gray apple and spinning gear. Help?
Also not totally sure if it's an Intel based computer, but that's what I recall. Any way to check, since I can't get to About This Mac window?
It's running on OSX Leopard 10.5.4
First symptom = running slowly - then it kind of froze with color wheel spinning - thought a forced shut down would help - help power button til off, then white screen, gray apple and spinning gear.
Have tried...
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.
Then try booting from your install disc again.
- No change
And...
Booting From An OS X Installer Disc
1. Insert OS X Installer Disc into the optical drive.
2. Restart the computer.
3. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "C" key.
4. Release the key when the spinning gear below the dark gray Apple logo
appears.
5. Wait for installer to finish loading.
- The fan just got louder.
Thanks for your help.

You need to do an Erase and Install or an Archive and Install depending on whether the hard drive is OK or needs to be reformatted.
Start by booting from your Leopard DVD. The rest is just following directions.
How to Perform an Archive and Install
An Archive and Install will NOT erase your hard drive, but you must have sufficient free space for a second OS X installation which could be from 3-9 GBs depending upon the version of OS X and selected installation options. The free space requirement is over and above normal free space requirements which should be at least 6-10 GBs. Read all the linked references carefully before proceeding.
1. Be sure to use Disk Utility first to repair the disk before performing the Archive and Install.
Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger, Leopard or Snow Leopard.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
2. Do not proceed with an Archive and Install if DU reports errors it cannot fix. In that case use Disk Warrior and/or TechTool Pro to repair the hard drive. If neither can repair the drive, then you will have to erase the drive and reinstall from scratch.
3. Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When you reach the screen to select a destination drive click once on the destination drive then click on the Option button. Select the Archive and Install option. You have an option to preserve users and network preferences. Only select this option if you are sure you have no corrupted files in your user accounts. Otherwise leave this option unchecked. Click on the OK button and continue with the OS X Installation.
4. Upon completion of the Archive and Install you will have a Previous System Folder in the root directory. You should retain the PSF until you are sure you do not need to manually transfer any items from the PSF to your newly installed system.
5. After moving any items you want to keep from the PSF you should delete it. You can back it up if you prefer, but you must delete it from the hard drive.
6. You can now download a Combo Updater directly from Apple's download site to update your new system to the desired version as well as install any security or other updates. You can also do this using Software Update.

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