24 inch iMac doesn't boot up, stuck on apple logo, I/O Error

Question

24 inch iMac doesn't boot up, stuck on apple logo, I/O Error

Hi there, I'm not really a apple user but a friend brough to me a iMac 24 inches bought on 2009, basically the thing doesn't start up, when the apple logo shows up the loading bar just doesn't go right at all, he says it has been like that for 2 years.

Anyways I've tried several things like resetting nvram, verbose mode, there it just shows I/O Error all the time, according to another friend that knows linux the error might mean that there's something wrong with the hard drive, here photos of the errors and more on verbose mode:

https://imgur.com/a/kLPPvIO

Also Single User Mode using the command fsck, but that didn't work either, lots of node errors

Basically everything that I could do with this iMac from here: https://appletoolbox.com/mac-fix-white-screen/

Also I tried making a usb drive with imageUSB (from windows) with an iso of mac osx El capitan and while it look like it was gonna do something https://i.imgur.com/ua9Zg9y.jpg it just showed up the "bad" icon when the load bar finished https://i.imgur.com/qr3eqjB.jpg

The idea was to try to reinstall osx to see if the hard drive was working properly or not in case the only thing wrong is the os installed inside that it's corrupted

I noticed there's a "windows" partition or something when pressing alt I noticed, If I try to start up that it just shows some ASCII symbols and a blinking underscore on the top left https://i.imgur.com/vzwipr2.jpg

If the hard drive is broken I don't know werever I can just tell my friend to buy an ssd, open it remove old one, put new ssd, close it and and try to install osx el capitan, because of that "bad" icon

Help, what should I do to fix it?

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Jul 16, 2019 10:16 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Anonimo_Llopi Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 17, 2019 4:17 PM in response to Anonimo_Llopi

Thank you guys, but my friend (not the owner) ended up formating and installing xubuntu (that DID boot with the alt key pressed menu), the hard drive seems fine, according to linux it's a mac 9,1, it has 640gb hard drive, 4gb of ram, intel core duo 2 2.66ghz, 1920x1200 monitor and some low end 2007 nvidia gpu (gt9400m maybe)

The drive had a 100gb "windows" partition that was corrupted, when trying to run it it would show the random ascii from before

I tried with another iso of el capitan before installing xubuntu on a pen drive, but it would just show this icon: https://i.imgur.com/qr3eqjB.jpg

It was actually pretty easy to install xubuntu, as if it were a normal pc, I wonder if it's also as easy as a normal pc to install windows too

Anyways, I've already given back the mac to the owner and he's happy that it even works at all after 2 years of nothingness

Some observations: a reference of how (not) powerful it is it can play 1080p youtube videos fine but it struggles a little with 1080p60fps with chrome, firefox run youtube way worse than chrome, not sure if it would run youtube videos better at mac osx , also the upper part of the case and the screen gets pretty hot

Anyways, thank you guys again for your efforts, I did learn a bit about macs with this experience :)

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Answer 2

Tesserax

Level 10

152,163 points

Jul 17, 2019 11:51 AM in response to Anonimo_Llopi

I apologize. There actually is a 24-inch, Early 2009 iMac model. (Thanks @Allan Jones for clarifying that!)

It was model A1225 or Model Identifier iMac9,1. There were a number of variations based on the Intel Core 2 Duo CPU installed. The only drive options were either a 640 GB or 1 TB 7200 rpm HDDs using 3.0 Gbps SATA II connections. Going back to OWC, they have SSDs, up to 2 TBs for this Mac model. If the original HDD has actually failed, then there would be no need to get an upgrade kit, but just the SSD only.

Since the SSD will come without an operating system or a recovery partition, you will need to create a bootable macOS installer. This is typically done using an external USB stick or portable drive.

Ref: How to create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support

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Answer 3

Allan Jones

Level 9

72,188 points

Jul 17, 2019 11:28 AM in response to Anonimo_Llopi

24-inch iMacs were in production from Aug 2007 until Oct 2009. Did you buy it new or used?

It will help to tell us the version of OSX this is running and what "About this Mac" shows for the sub-model. If it run macOS 10.7 or higher, the sub-model is located similer to this example:

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Answer 4

Tesserax

Level 10

152,163 points

Jul 16, 2019 10:26 AM in response to Anonimo_Llopi

Based on what I can make out from the images, I would suspect that the iMac's system drive has failed ... or is badly corrupted. At this point, I would suggest replacing it. You can get "step-by-step" information on how to do so, and what drives would be compatible, from a source, like OWC.

FYI, there is either a 21.5 or 27" 2009 iMac model; no 24" models that I'm aware of.

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Answer 5

Jul 16, 2019 11:21 AM in response to Tesserax

Mmmm the screen only without the black borders it's 24 inches but If I measure the whole body then it's a bit more than 28 inches (both measured from lower edge left to higher edge right, so it's probably the 27 inch model, I can't really know the exact model if I can't boot into osx.

As a update on verbose mode, this is the last thing that it shows on verbose mode until it just stops doing anything more (it takes a while to get here): https://i.imgur.com/XahgpA9.jpg

Also, aren't all sata III ssds compatibles? even if the mac only uses sata II

In the theorical case that I remplaced the drive what would I have to do to install OSX? How does a mac with a blank drive acts?

I would like to try to install the osx first on the drive to see what happens, maybe the iso of el capitan that I downloaded wasn't good, so I'm trying another one, unless the "bad" sign is being produced by the bad hard drive

Cheers

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Answer 6

Tesserax

Level 10

152,163 points

Jul 17, 2019 10:02 AM in response to Anonimo_Llopi

The image still shows that the drive has issues and can't be repaired.

All SSDs are not the same. Again, I suggest that you use the OWC link I provided you to find a compatible drive for this Mac. You do not have to purchase the drive from OWC, but their site is very helpful. As I mentioned before, they also provide the step-by-step on how to go about this.

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Answer 7

Jul 17, 2019 1:48 PM in response to Anonimo_Llopi

Macs accept any hard drive/USB flash drive, no special, overly expensive drive from OWC necessary.

Macs easily boot from external drives with a bootable System on them which I am almost certain you can not create from Windows or Linux.

The bootable drive must be formatted to HFS+ or AFS and have GUID checked.

When you have a bootable hard drive with, if you have an iMac 24" 2008, maximum macOS 10.11.6 El Capitan, just plug it in and hold down the Option key to choose the Startup drive.

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Answer 8

Tesserax

Level 10

152,163 points

Jul 17, 2019 1:54 PM in response to PeterBreis0807

PeterBreis0807 wrote:

Macs accept any hard drive/USB flash drive, no special, overly expensive drive from OWC necessary.

True. Unless you want to replace the internal drive...but no one is suggesting that OWC is the only source. I know I didn't.

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Answer 9

Jul 17, 2019 3:26 PM in response to Tesserax

Including internal drive.

The only reason to get the OWC kit is to get all the extra tools like spudger etc, but you can buy those separately and source your own SSD or HDD and not pay OWC simply because you don't know better.

It is so hard to defend against PC accusations that Mac Users are simple ignorant captives of Apples FUD. I had to give up in a store where an older Mac user was getting bad advice from store staff to get an overpriced Mac formatted passport HDD. He simply would not listen that all he had to do was get any HDD and reformat it with Disk Utility in less than one minute!

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Answer 10

Jul 17, 2019 4:25 PM in response to Anonimo_Llopi

That icon simply means there is no locatable bootable system on the pen drive, probably because it is not GUID and/or because all you put on the USB flash drive was the .iso (on Macs that should be .dmg) which is not the installer itself.

You use the .dmg of the macOS version to create an Installer USB flash drive, then insert that and do the installation, or use the copy of Disk Utility in the Installer to try and fix the internal drive.

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Answer 11

Jul 17, 2019 5:26 PM in response to Anonimo_Llopi

.dmg are self mounting volumes on a Mac, we have had them for decades, I think maybe back to the '80s.

They are amazing things, taking all sorts of forms, they are fast, essentially raw disk images with a bit of metadata, can be internally compressed, locked, have their own file formats and are most used for installers. When you double click on them they appear exactly like a volume and their contents can be used just like an attached drive.

...but they only contain the Installer, in this case, they are not actually the installer.

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Answer 12

HWTech

Level 9

60,338 points

Jul 17, 2019 1:07 PM in response to Anonimo_Llopi

Those I/O Errors indicate a physically failing hard drive.

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Answer 13

Jul 17, 2019 4:52 PM in response to PeterBreis0807

I wish I tried that but it's too late, I remember seeing .dmg downloads somewere and also a .dmg file inside the iso

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24 inch iMac doesn't boot up, stuck on apple logo, I/O Error

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