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Level 1

31 points

Unable to start with CMD R button held down

Hi!

My 2011 imac has been really slow lately - I am only ⚠ using 66% of the HD, I have gone into Disk uitility and run "repair permissions" which was fine, I've also run "verify disk" which told me I needed to resatart my machine holding down the CMD & R buttons until the Apple Logo appears then let it start and run "repair disk" BUT when I restart my maching holding those 2 keys down, the screen shows a circle with a diagonal line through it, andf the curso just spins - I have tried a few times but always same - what do I need to do?

I'm running 10.7.5 3.2ghz intel core i3 with 4gb Ram

TIA

Wayno

27" iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Apr 6, 2014 5:09 AM

18 replies

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Apr 6, 2014 11:16 AM in response to waynog

waynog wrote:

Csound/Andy - ok I will do this when I have some time during the week- can we leave this query open/unsolved so I can report back?

Sure, good luck.

andyBall_uk

Level 7

20,516 points

Apr 7, 2014 6:19 AM in response to waynog

Start by attempting to repair it from Disk Utility on the TM Recovery, assuming that it's available to start from. While there, check the S.M.A.R.T status .

If you can't repair it, try OS X: How to erase and install

I would check Console at the times it runs slowly, since that may show something useful. As could the AHT : OS X Lion: Use Apple Hardware Test

Jun 10, 2014 8:16 PM in response to Csound1

Wow, so happy to have found this thread! Lots of great information here.

You all are much more technically inclined than I, but I'm managing to follow what you've been reporting so far...

My situation is that:

a.) I get no chime ( this tells me no OS is being found, right? )

b.) cmd+R gets no result whatsoever, and the spinning wheel pauses and just hangs up with no further response from the machine.

c.) ' option' upon boot gets me ' Macintosh HD' and ' OS X 10.8 recovery,' which is presumably the recovery partition, correct? I was so excited when this worked, but the machine would not boot from the recovery partition... the spinning wheel paused and just hung up with no further response from the machine.

d.) I plugged in my Time Machine ( external), which I usually connect via ESATA, upon boot kept ' option' key depressed and got the option to boot from ' Macintosh HD,' ' OS X 10.8 recovery,' and now my TM external drive. It allowed me to select the Time Machine and proceed, but the spinning wheel paused and just hung up there with no further response from the machine. The TM drive did not apparently respond - i.e., no blinking lights indicating access / read / writes

e.) I thought, hey, perhaps ESATA is not supported in recovery mode, so I hooked up the TM via USB 2.0 instead. This time using the option key I got apparent read / writes, i.e., lots of light blinking on the drive. The option let me choose the TM, yet no love, just the spinning wheel pausing and hanging up with no further response from the machine.

f.) as a last ditch effort I've attempted cmd+option+R to hopefully get an internet recovery process under way, no love, and the spinning wheel paused and just hung up with no further response from the machine.

At this point I'm thinking that the system drive must be fried because I continue to get no response whatsoever from any of these methods of recovery attempt. If the recovery process cannot access the recovery partition, that is apparently there on the drive, it must be because the drive is failing??

I was hoping for just a corrupt master boot record that could be repaired, or somesuch, but it seems like I have a fried drive 😟 😟 😟

Am I missing something...?

Thank you for any input; good, bad, or ugly.

andrew

Unable to start with CMD R button held down