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Asialimarco Author

Level 1

23 points

iMac doesn't start up

Hello,

I have a problem with my iMac 24" running OSX Lion.

The Mac suddenly become unresponsive, waited for long time, but no way to regain control.

Forced to power off by long press on the power button.

Tried to reboot, the chimes sounds, the white background with the apple pop up, the spinning wheel of loading appear and there it stays.

Waited for more than 15 minutes, it doesn't move forward from that point.

Forced down again and tried again, the same result.

Tryed to reset the power management unit by pressing and holding control-option-P-R before power it up again, waited the second chime to confirm the reset, again it stops at the same point.

Started once again by pressing option and choose the partition of recovery hd.

Successfully entered in the recovery menu.

I choose verify disk, I got an error that a node can't be resolve. Suggested to repair the disk.

So I choosed to repair, but after few minutes an error again and it said that the disk can't be repair.

Now, before proceeding, I hope someone could offer me some tips.....

1- there is any way to access to the start up partition from the recovery partition in order to backup or copy on an external unit the files I didn't backup ??.

I hope yes...

2- how do I proceed now? What the problem might be? The HDD has some physical hardware issue or it might be a file corruption in the system files?.

How do I determinate that?

3- if the HDD still fine, what do you suggest me to do? Ripristinate from backup? Format and reinstall Lion? Is possible to reinstall Lion without formatting?

I'm confused......

Thanks everyone in advance for your precious help!!!!!!!!

Marco

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Feb 25, 2013 5:22 AM

Best reply

Ralph Landry1

Level 8

41,850 points

Posted on Feb 25, 2013 5:35 AM

A few questions:

- Do you have an external hard drive with backup of the internal hard drive? If not it might be a good idea to try and get one incase you have to erase the internal hard drive...a good source is OWC, I have three of their Mercury Pro Elite 2 TB drives.

- Have you tried starting up in Safe Mode - startup holding the shift key, if you get a good startup then there may be issues with applications of extensions that Disk utility cannot resolve.

- If there is physical damage to the hard drive, the only options will be a new hard drive or an erase and install of the operating system, and all applications, so that the bad sectors can be avoided. This step should not be done until you have a backup of the drive.

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18 replies

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Feb 25, 2013 8:34 AM in response to Asialimarco

Performed twice fsck -fy, always I/O error.

The more you try to repair your failing, unrepairable drive, the less likely you are to be able to rescue the data.

Feb 25, 2013 11:04 AM in response to Asialimarco

I experienced the same symptons as Asialimarco, on start up I got the Apple screen and then it went to a blank screen with the little circle turning and would never get out of it. I did all that was suggested; Safe Mode got the same results as the original startup, running fsck from single user several times until I got the disk is ok message didn't change a thing, starting from recovery mode and running Disk Utilities as well as TechTools eDisk, which found issues, didn't do a thing. Finally chose to re-install Mountain Lion and now things appear to be working correctly. At least it booted up and I have everything.

Asialimarco Author

Level 1

23 points

Feb 25, 2013 8:40 PM in response to Asialimarco

Latest Update:

after trying the fsck 5 or 6 time, i decided to stop that and tried to access to the drive as Davis suggested by the wirefire cable, by starting the imac in target mode, and linked to my macbook.

The imac did started in Target mode, but there was no way for the macbook to see that partition.

so i decided to forget about some files i didn't backup recently and tried a restore from the Recovery HD.

started in recovery mode, restore from the external drive where my latest back time machine were stored.

It tooked 7 hours but at the end the imac restarted normally. I tried to power it off and on again, seams fine.

I'm almost sure the internal HDD is not anylonger trustable, so i'm thinking to replace it with a new one.

After i restarted the imac the second time, i run disk utility, and during the verification i still get an error message about a node, the difference is that this time the report tells me that the node broken is not in use, but to try anyway to repair it by make the repair disk from the recovery HD.

Well i didn't try it yet as it was already early morning and i had to go working, so i will try it once again this evening.

If the node is not in use now, probably the repair disk utility will clean up (if not physical damaged) the problem.

Anyway i will change that drive with a new one.

when i bought the imac (early 2009) i had the snow leopard disk, but than i bought from app store on-line the osx Lion, which is not coming with the installation disk.

If i restore the system on the new HDD, will i get also the partition for Recovery HD???

if not, how to do it?

thanks again to everybody for your help.

Marco

iMac doesn't start up