Imac G5 loud clicking and can't boot.

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Imac G5 loud clicking and can't boot.

Compter was frozen on the desktop screen making clicking noises (hard drive?), had to unplug to restart. Now won't boot past grey screen with flashing question mark and still makes clicking noises occasionally. Holding option key doesn't let me select volume to boot from... inserting startup disk for Leopard doesn't work, have reset PRAM, NVRAM, and Open Firmware and have tried to access single user mode without any luck... what are my options? I am more concerned with recovering my data from my hard drive than saving my aging computer.

Thanks

iMac, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Jun 23, 2012 1:25 PM

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Answer 1

Jun 23, 2012 1:43 PM in response to Stoeszar

It does sound like the hard drive is gone, power supply can also make clicking sounds if it is bad but because your machine can boot up and stay powered it indeed points to hard drive.

If the read/write head or any mechanics of the hard drive are damaged the only option is to take the disk to a professional for data recovery. You can't recover anything by yourself the hard disk cannot read any of its data.

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Answer 2

Stoeszar Author

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Jun 23, 2012 1:48 PM in response to -Rotten Apple-

Thanks for the reply... I understand this might be the issue, however I can't quite figure out why I can't even access single user mode and run fsck to check my hard drive etc... I thought this was a separate process from my hard drive?

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Answer 3

Jun 23, 2012 2:03 PM in response to Stoeszar

No fsck is Unix program (Mac OS X is based on Unix) so it has to loaded from hard disk:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsck

Open Firmware is the software which is stored in a chip on the motherboard. It might be that the damaged hard disk is somehow messing it up so cannot choose boot device. Even if you manage to boot it from disc there is not much you can do if the disk head is damaged as it cannot access the data in any way.

If you have iMac without camera it is relatively easy to open up the computer and remove the disk.

Instructions:

http://www.ifixit.com/Device/iMac_G5

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Answer 4

Stoeszar Author

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Jun 23, 2012 2:09 PM in response to -Rotten Apple-

Thanks again for your help... I guess that's why I can't get anywhere. Unfortunately I have a Imac with isight, so I'll have to look into getting at the hard drive. I suppose running taget mode if I could find another mac and firewire won't help if my drive can't be read?

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Answer 5

Jun 23, 2012 2:11 PM in response to Stoeszar

Yeah, it does not help, it's kinda same situation than if you have CD in perfect condition but the CD player cannot spin the CD at all or if it can spin but the laser does not work.

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Answer 6

Stoeszar Author

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Jun 23, 2012 2:15 PM in response to -Rotten Apple-

Okay, thanks for all your help... I suppose these are the results of using a 6 year old computer 😟

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