White screen after erasing and reinstalling OS X

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White screen after erasing and reinstalling OS X

HI there,

I have a 5 year old iMac that has been running perfectly up until a month ago. We had a power cut (not the first time the mac has been suddenly turned off), and after turning it back on I get the Apple logo and a progress bar for about 30 seconds before it turns into a white screen, with no cursor. I have called Apple 3 times about this issue and we have gone through all the steps you see in the forums here to solve this problem. Yesterday Apple told me to erase the HD and reinstall a fresh copy of OS X. I have everything backed up on time machine so I went ahead and did this. During the installation process I did not choose to transfer data from my external HD via time machine in case the problem i was having was due to something I had on my external HD. After installation was complete the computer restarted only for the white screen to appear again. I had to boot into safe mode to fully complete installation. After this was done, I restarted the computer only to encounter the white screen again. My question is, are there anymore steps I can take to resolve this problem, or is it time to take it to a Genius Bar?

Thanks in advance.

iMac (27-inch Mid 2010)

Posted on Apr 28, 2015 7:21 AM

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Answer 1

QuickPost

Level 10

103,305 points

Apr 28, 2015 7:32 AM in response to Spacegirlie

Thank you for using the Apple Support Communities

There's a few more things your can try. Press and hold Option + Command + P + R at the startup "Dong" and your computer will reboot again. When that is done Press and hold Command + V at the "Dong" and this will put the computer in verbose mode and allow you to see exactly what the computer is hanging up on while it is booting up.

-Zeph

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Answer 2

Spacegirlie Author

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Apr 28, 2015 7:41 AM in response to QuickPost

Thanks for your quick reply. I just followed these instructions, and at verbose mode the screen went black and started showing a lot of text. After 20 seconds the screen went white. No cursor again, and I wasn't able to fully read everything before it went off.

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Answer 3

QuickPost

Level 10

103,305 points

Apr 28, 2015 7:45 AM in response to Spacegirlie

Start your computer by pressing Command + R. This will boot the computer into recovery mode. When you're in there, open Disk Utility and you will see a button that says "Verify Disk". Run that and then "Repair Disk"..

-Zeph

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Answer 4

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,550 points

Apr 28, 2015 7:47 AM in response to Spacegirlie

Chances are the hard disk was damaged by the power outage. You can attempt to repair the HD per zmclearan's instructions, however if it has errors are running Repair Disk after 2-3 attempts then you need to have it replaced.

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