I have no OS on my Mac 2008 and can not boot into anything?

I have a iMac 2008, I haven't used it in a long time and when i powered it up I couldn't boot into MacOS (Lion) I get the message "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key".


I dont have another apple device to make a installer and there is no recovery (holding Command + R doesn't work nor Command + shift + R)


I made a boot USB on my windows PC using TransMac but that just doesn't show up when I hold alt to see the boot drives I only have the main hard drive and no recovery there either.


I can get a Windows boot key to show up as a FEI USB, but it just freezes when I click on it. (This USB is set on to work with a PC, I don't know if it needs to be changed to run on Mac but i want Windows on there just used it to see if it would boot)


I've tried apple support over the phone but they say to take into a shop and i can't do that because of lock down (I'm at high risk but can get deliveries if i leave them in the outhouse for a few days before touching them).

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on May 9, 2020 7:57 AM

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May 9, 2020 11:48 AM in response to t0mmy0liver

There is a good chance the iMac's hard drive has failed. This is especially common if the drive hasn't been powered on in many years as the drive will have trouble spinning up again.


If you want to test the iMac, then create a bootable Knoppix Linux USB drive using Etcher (Mac/Windows/Linux). Option Boot the Knoppix USB drive and select the orange icon labeled "EFI". While Knoppix is booting the iMac may appear to be frozen on the Apple boot picker menu so give Knoppix lots of time to boot.


At the Knoppix Desktop click on the "Start" menu and navigate to "System Tools ---> GSmartControl". Do you see an icon for the iMac's internal hard drive? If so double-click on it to access the drive's health information. Post the full report here using the "Additional Text" icon which looks like a piece of paper. GSmartControl also allows you to run the hard drive's internal selftests. The short test takes about 2 minutes and the long/extended test can take an hour to several hours or even a day depending on the size & speed of the drive. If you don't see the iMac's hard drive icon, then the drive is definitely bad.



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I have no OS on my Mac 2008 and can not boot into anything?

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