I shut down my iMac 24 inch desk top for a week. When restarting I get the utility screen and cannot access the hardrive. Any ideas what has occurred and how to fix it. Thanks for the help.

Question

Level 1

4 points

I shut down my iMac 24 inch desk top for a week. When restarting I get the utility screen and cannot access the hardrive. Any ideas what has occurred and how to fix it. Thanks for the help.

I shut down my computer for a week and when restarting it I get a grey screen with a circle and line through it (like a stop sign) and then the OS X Utilities screen with 4 options: Restore from Time Machine, Reinstall OS X, Get Help Online, and Dis Utility. I am unable to access the hardrive. I have gone online for help at the website apple.stackexchange,com and tried the suggestion to reset the NVRAM without success. I have backed up with Time Machine but am concerned to restore because it requires deleting everything on the computer first. My computer is a 24 inch desktop purchased in December 2008, 2.8 with 4GB and the most recent iOS software (Yosemite). I cannot get the information from the computer because I cannot access it either. No idea what caused the problem. Any ideas what caused the problem and how to fix it?

Thanks

iMac, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on May 3, 2015 7:33 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,418 points

May 4, 2015 6:36 PM in response to Superamus

Reinstall OS X, it will not overwrite your data so if the HD is okay then so is your data. However if OS X will not install then the disk may have failed or is in the process of. While in the Recovery Partition select Disk Utility then run Repair Disk on the internal HD. If errors appear after the 2-3 rd pass then the HD likely needs to be replaced.

Reply