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I’m trying to fix our old iMac but it comes up with the prohibitory symbol upon startup. Command R does nothing, only option but it only comes up with the Macintosh hd which does nothing. I don’t currently have the snow leopard dvd to make an installer but I only have a windows laptop to work off of and idk if it would even work.
iMac Line (2012 and Later)
Hi! Sounds like your storage device is having issues. The hard drive contains a Macintosh operating system but it is unusable (it may be the wrong version). Here is something to look at:
If your Mac starts up to a circle with a line through it - Apple Support
Hi! Sounds like your storage device is having issues. The hard drive contains a Macintosh operating system but it is unusable (it may be the wrong version). Here is something to look at:
If your Mac starts up to a circle with a line through it - Apple Support
There was no recovery partition on the 2006 iMacs, I don't believe.
Honestly, it's not worth the effort to get it running again unless you just want a toy. It can't run anything even remotely resembling a supported OS. You won't be able to do much of anything with it.
I'm assuming you were not backing up the data in any way. If you were not then sadly your data is almost likely gone. You can try a data recovery service however for most these are extremely expensive. Expect to spend upwards of $10,000 to recover some of your data.
In all likelihood, either the hard drive has been erased or it has failed.
It's not likely there is anything left to get off of it.
If you're concerned about the data and intend to dispose of the machine, remove the hard drive and physically destroy it.
At this point I’d just like to get everything off of it
No :( okay that’s good to know
Dang I was worried about that. I found this article: https://www.howtogeek.com/728422/how-to-get-your-data-off-a-mac-that-wont-boot/
Do you think it’s worth trying?
The only realistic option in that article is probably going to be physically removing the drive and trying to connect it to another Mac.
Okay thank you!
You Mac is 16 years old and can't be easily rehabilitated. It's way past obsolete which begs the question how much time, money and effort do you want to expend on it?
I suspect the issue here is the data on the most likely dead drive more than the machine itself.
This may end up being a hard lesson in the importance of backing up.
Yeah that’s what I’m starting to think unfortunately
2006 iMac with Prohibitory Symbol
