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)