All I get when my iMac is turned on is a white screen with an apple and a moving circle. What should I do to get the iMac to boot?
iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)
Have a look at some of the troubleshooting tips in this article:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
If the trouble continues see if your HD needs repairs by booting into the Recovery HD and running Disk Utility:
Thanks for the reply. I did follow some of these steps and in Verify Disk and Repair Disk it fails and says that there is an Invalid node Structure.
How can this be corrected without major destruction?
Do you have reliable backup you can restore from, as an erase and re-install may be required?
Before you got down that route, it's possible that it might get fixed if you try again. Not sure about that particular error, but I have had errors in the past that Disk Utility wouldn't fix on the first attempt but then subsequently did.
It's also possible that the (around $99, I think) Disk Warrior might resolve it - but not guaranteed.
However, I just found this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3862376?start=15&tstart=0 have a look at Nirvi's post at the end - there may be hope (I've not tried this, although it seems to have helped a few, although not everybody - so at your own risk and I wouldn't try it if I didn't have backup).
Thanks, but I could not get that to run. Not sure where else to go....
Do you have backup to restore from as an erase and install is looking like it's going to be necessary?
Maybe hang on to see if someone else chimes in with other ideas.
buckfam6 wrote:
I did follow some of these steps and in Verify Disk and Repair Disk it fails and says that there is an Invalid node Structure.
How can this be corrected without major destruction?
Are you getting this when you run Disk Utility from the recovery HD? If so and if DU says it can't repair it, your only option is to try another disk repair utility, such as DiskWarrior or TechTools. Without a viable backup, the only other thing to do is erase, repartition, and restore the OS, losing all user data and settings.
Is there a way to access the data via a MacBook through Firewire Target?
Hopefully, if the iMac will boot whilst holding down the 't' key:
ok, So the iMac goes into the Target mode as I see the Firewire symbol on the screen; however the MacBook does not show the Mac HD. Is this telling me that the MacHD is really dead?
It's not looking good. Have you got no backup?
I have some information on an external, like my iPhoto library and iMovie stuff, but there is still other information that I really do not want to loose. Apparently TimeMachine back up got turned off somehow 11/2011.
Not sure where you go from here. There is the Disk Warrior option, but it's not guaranteed.
Thanks for all of the suggesstions. I am attempting to restore from the 11/2011 backup and in the Select Destination it just says Searching for disks.......
The internal drive has failed. If you have data on it that isn't backed up and that you want to keep, you need expert help to recover it.
What do I do when I start my iMac I get a white screen with an apple and a moving circle?
