Resussitating a dead iMac? Dr. Frankenstein?

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Level 1

8 points

Resussitating a dead iMac? Dr. Frankenstein?

I have an older iMac running Mountain Lion. A few months ago, it began to restart itself randomly every once in a while. And then last month, it was virtually unusable, as it restarted itself every twenty minutes or so. Probably the logic board. So I have a new iMac that I restored from the backup. But for some reason, it did not completely backup a program I use called Billings. Long story, longer...I need some information out of that program, but my old iMac doesn't mount anymore. I start it up and I hear the fans and the harddrive going, but NO video on the screen and NO startup sound. It just sits there. Silently mocking me.

So I just need to get in there for 5 minutes. I cannot zap the PRAM or reset the SMC. Is there ANYTHING I can do to get this up and running for a few minutes. I know this is a ridiculous question, but I'm desperate.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Nov 6, 2013 9:08 AM

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Answer 1

Anon456

Level 1

10 points

Nov 6, 2013 9:59 AM in response to Burren47

What you need is access to the old Mac's hard disk. It's worth trying connecting the two macs with a firewire cable and starting up the old one while holding down the Cmd and T keys to see if it starts in FireWire target disk mode. From your description, it's not likely that this will work. But if it does, it's the easiest way.

If that does not work, you need to open your old mac up and remove the hard drive, there are online guides that explain how to do this. The hard drive can be connected to your new mac using a USB docking station. They are fairly cheap and available from many online sources.

It the disk is not readable, then that's a whole new question.

Hopefully that will allow you to recover what you need.

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