iMac (Mid 2011) stuck in restart loop

My Mid 2011, 27" iMac is caught in a restart loop. On start-up, the boot progress bar gets 1/3 full before the system goes to a blank gray screen then restart itself. It will continue this cycle unless I manually shut the machine off using the button. The cycle takes about 5 minutes.


  • Reset of PRAM did not help
  • Trying to boot into safe mode gives me a blue screen (see below). Same with recover disk.
  • Disk verifies okay via fsck and by using thunderbolt target disk mode with my MacBook.
  • Trying to boot into my Bootcamp partition hangs after the Windows animated logo goes away, leaving a black (lit) screen.


Thanks for the help.

User uploaded file

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3), Mid 2011, 27"

Posted on Apr 9, 2015 7:59 PM

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5 replies

Apr 9, 2015 8:05 PM in response to powerover

Reinstalling OS X Without Erasing the Drive


Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.


Reinstalling OS X Without Erasing the Drive


Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.


When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility and press the Continue button. After Disk Utility loads select the Macintosh HD entry from the the left side list. Click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If Disk Utility reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit Disk Utility and return to the main menu.


Reinstall OS X: Select Reinstall OS X and click on the Continue button.


Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.


Alternatively, see:


Reinstall OS X Without Erasing the Drive


Choose the version you have installed now:


OS X Yosemite- Reinstall OS X

OS X Mavericks- Reinstall OS X

OS X Mountain Lion- Reinstall OS X

OS X Lion- Reinstall Mac OS X


Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet

if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

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iMac (Mid 2011) stuck in restart loop

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