white screen

Question

white screen

i have a brand spanking new 24 inch imac (4 months old). the past 2 days im getting a white screen. and it just sits there, yesterday i just power cycled it and it then starting just find. but not today, today it wont work regardless of how many times i have power cycled and dont even got a loading icon. this is my first apple pc and im not sure what to do about it. i have tried restarting it 6 times already this moring. help!!!!!!:)

imac, Mac OS X (10.5.3)

Posted on Jun 12, 2008 3:48 AM

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Answer 1

Jun 12, 2008 4:55 AM in response to vikinghammer2

Welcome to the Apple forums, vikinghammer2.

It looks like your Mac might have forgotten which disk it has to work with. As a first try, start the computer with the Option key held down. That will give you a basic grey screen and using the left/right keys you should be able to select a disk icon that shows OS X.

If that IS the answer (and I am not promising), when you do start up, go into the System Preferences> Startup disk panel and make sure that an OS X disk is selected.

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Answer 2

Jun 12, 2008 5:32 AM in response to vikinghammer2

OMG!!!!! thanks you, this worked. not that you would care or anything but i just got off the night shift and it would not work and i made a 10am appointment 1 hour away at the apple store, not only did you save my apple but gained me some more sleep time:) thank you, thank you and......... thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Answer 3

Jun 12, 2008 9:12 AM in response to vikinghammer2

Well, ahem, you are not the first this has happened to.

Glad it solved your problem: make sure you mark the question as answered -- keep it all tidy and all that.

All the best.

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Answer 4

Jul 2, 2008 4:56 PM in response to vikinghammer2

This seems to be a really, really common problem for Leopard users with external devices. I have been running Leopard on my G5 Imac for a couple of months now using an external LaCie 2Tb Quadra (Firewire 800) with no trouble. For some reason I can no longer start up with the external drive plugged in. It's not even good enough to simply shut off the power. I have to physically unplug the drive to start it.

My opinion is that one of the recent software updates must not be liking these external drives.

I feel sorry for the people who have taken their computers to the Apple Store to get fixed, and will likely walk out with a hefty repair bill if the computer is not covered.

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Answer 5

Jul 2, 2008 7:23 PM in response to maddermaus

It may well be that you have a different problem and this is one reason why it is better to create your own thread: this one is pretty much solved (and old) so your question may have been unnoticed by those who might help.

As a quick suggestion, have you tried LaCie? There are two sides to every story: the OS and the developers, so it may not be Apple's fault. There was a problem with firmware on external disks a few years back and LaCie were at the forefront of providing a fix for this. Maybe they are unaware of a problem?

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