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iMac reboot on Snow Leopard OX disc

For about a month I've started getting the flashing question mark/folder icon. I thought it was resolved last month when I did some disk utility repairs, but today it would not even boot up. I added the Snow Leopard OX disk and it did boot to it. However, going to the Disk Utility it does not find my hard drive. Not sure what to do now. Is my computer toast. The bad thing is that a week ago I disconnected time machine because I noticed my computer moved really slow when it kicked in. So I'm off work for the holidays and I thought I would back up all the latest to my external HD this week, now this. Please advise. I don't have a laptop right now so using my husbands for this forum request.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Posted on Dec 25, 2011 1:22 PM

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Posted on Dec 25, 2011 2:24 PM

It sounds like your System is corrupt, or worse still, your hard drive has died.


Boot from your Snow Leopard OSX install disk, launch Disk Utility.


If Disk Utility is able to find your hard drive, run Disk Verify and Disk Repair.


If Disk Utility cannot repair your hard drive, you have 2 options (in my experience) run DiskWarrior to rebuild the disk directory (has worked for me) or reinstall OSX and restore your disk from your Time Machine backup.


If you have more recent files (since your last TM backup) that you need to recover, you can attempt to recover your files using disk recovery utilities (such as Data Rescue). I've not has much success with data recovery.


If Disk Utility cannot find your hard drive, you may have a hardware problem, either the hard drive has had a mechanical failure or the sata cable is faulty. The iMac is unlikely to be at fault if you are able to boot from the Snow Leopard install DVD.


Let us know how you go and if the forum can provide any more assistance.

8 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Dec 25, 2011 2:24 PM in response to patdpoo

It sounds like your System is corrupt, or worse still, your hard drive has died.


Boot from your Snow Leopard OSX install disk, launch Disk Utility.


If Disk Utility is able to find your hard drive, run Disk Verify and Disk Repair.


If Disk Utility cannot repair your hard drive, you have 2 options (in my experience) run DiskWarrior to rebuild the disk directory (has worked for me) or reinstall OSX and restore your disk from your Time Machine backup.


If you have more recent files (since your last TM backup) that you need to recover, you can attempt to recover your files using disk recovery utilities (such as Data Rescue). I've not has much success with data recovery.


If Disk Utility cannot find your hard drive, you may have a hardware problem, either the hard drive has had a mechanical failure or the sata cable is faulty. The iMac is unlikely to be at fault if you are able to boot from the Snow Leopard install DVD.


Let us know how you go and if the forum can provide any more assistance.

iMac reboot on Snow Leopard OX disc

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