What to do with iMac A1224 (2008/2009?) I can't log into (missing disk).

Do you have another Mac available? If so, and depending on the age the OS on the other Mac, you may be able to use Target Disk Mode to access the data on the drive without booting from it:

Transfer files between two Mac computers using target disk mode - Apple Support

However, the easiest way for a computer about to be recycled is to physically remove the hard drive. Two benefits:

1—no chance of any data being left in the old computer

2—once removed, you can attach the bare drive to another computer—Mac or Windows—and use a bare drive adapter or a drive dock to acces the data on the drive.

If the computer is damaged while removing the drive, who cares? it's getting recycled anyway. It's too old to be of practical use to a new user today.

Look for videos instructions for removing the drive by web-searching for "remove hard drive 2008-2009 iMac" If it is not something you think you can handle, see if a local computer shop will extractthe drive.

Apple will be happy to recycle it for you.

Hi, somapop, sorry to hear of your mom’s passing too.. maybe you can install Snow Leopard from a Retail Install DVD of it..unfortunately, unless you know for sure it had 10.7 OSX Lion on it, then a retail copy of Snow Leopard would be an OK option ., if you have one already, use it , if not, maybe buy it … if you think it might have Lion on it, you could try to get to the Recovery partition by rebooting + holding down Apple/cloverleaf/command key + R together on the keyboard as it’s starting up… if you see a language selection screen, then you have one, if not, then snow leopard dvd would be it, otherwise Apple could recycle it for you

John B

Whether I need certain tools for this I'll have to have a search (I moved home recently and a fair bit of stuff got passed on/recycled)

Understand relocation all too well! The good news is that older Intel iMacs used magnets to hold the screen cover and you pulled it off with suction cups. Beyond that, it should be only screwdrivers.

That model would have shipped from the factory with a macOS Restoration CD/DVD.

If you don't have those discs and all you want to do is securely erase the internal drive, then try creating & using a bootable ShredOS USB stick in order to write zeroes to the whole internal hard drive. You should be able to use the 64bit version:

https://github.com/PartialVolume/shredos.x86_64

If you want to try to recover data from the internal hard drive, then you could try creating & using a bootable Knoppix Linux USB stick. Knoppix has the drivers necessary to access the HFS+ file system, but you will need to connect another external USB drive for saving the recovered items.

You can also try booting the iMac into Recovery Mode using Command + R (perhaps even better is Command + Option + R so that you are not prompted to authenticate with an AppleID which you won't have that will work). If you can boot into Recovery Mode, then try installing macOS to an external drive (you will need to properly erase or even partition & format the external drive using Disk Utility). Then you can boot the iMac from the external drive to see if any personal information remains. Or if you are familiar with the command line, you can check while booted into Recovery Mode.

If you can boot into Recovery Mode, then you can also use Disk Utility to securely erase the internal hard drive. Disk Utility does have an option to secure erase a hard drive by writing zeroes or even random data to the drive (usually a single pass of zeroes is sufficient). This assumes the hard drive is still healthy enough to complete the task.

This all assumes that the internal hard drive is still healthy. More than likely the internal hard drive is worn out or even failing.

Sorry to hear of your mom's passing.

+1 Apple will recycle it at no charge. Please click Apple Recycling Programs to find the recycling program for your country.