Old iMac - Won't start up

Question

Level 1

4 points

Old iMac - Won't start up

Hi all. I have an old iMac (5 or 6 years old?) that's been defunct for a couple of years. I'm trying to get it back up and running if possible. Before, it would hang on startup - the progress part would just stop. Sometimes it would get into a loop of restarting, sometimes no progress.

I finally got it into Disk Utility and did a Repair on all the disks (starting at the top). No luck. I did get it into Recovery again and tried to Reinstall MacOS. It was going good until... macos could not be installed on your computer: a disk with a mount point is required (-69854).

I've tried a few times, same issue. But now, it's stuck in the install loop. Even if I do a hard restart, it goes back into the installation process and gets stuck at various points.

Is this toast? Anything else I should try before giving up?

Thank you!

iMac 21.5", macOS 10.13

Posted on Apr 2, 2020 2:30 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

HWTech

Community+ 2026

Level 9

71,552 points

Apr 2, 2020 4:25 PM in response to Delecto

I agree with @rkaufmann87 that it sounds like a bad hard drive.

You can try running the Apple Diagnostics.

You can check the health of the hard drive by creating a bootable Knoppix Linux USB drive using Etcher (Mac/Windows/Linux). Option Boot the USB drive and select the orange icon labeled "EFI". While Knoppix boots the computer may appear frozen on the Apple boot picker menu so give Knoppix lots of time to boot (it is a Mac issue).

Once at the Knoppix desktop click on the "Start" menu located on the lower left of the Taskbar and navigate to "System Tools --> GSmartControl". Within the GSmartControl app double-click on the hard drive icon for your computer which will access the hard drive's health report. Post the full report here.

What is the exact model of your iMac? You can get this information by entering your serial number here or here.

Reply

Answer 2

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,654 points

Apr 2, 2020 2:35 PM in response to Delecto

It sounds like a failed HD but without looking at it the best we can offer is If your Mac won't turn on or start up and follow the steps methodically.

Reply

Old iMac - Won't start up

Similar questions