I recently moved my iMac from one office to another and placed it screen down in the boot of my car to avoid damage. It wasn't dropped, bumped or banged but now when i turn it on it gets to the white Apple screen with the spinning timer and stays like this for hours - never actually booting up. What's wrong?
iMac
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 Mavericks- Reinstall OS X
OS X Mountain Lion- Reinstall OS X
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet
if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.
Difficult to say, but start by carefully reading Apple's Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup - Apple Support and then methodically follow each step. If it does not boot by the time you get to the Learn More section then take it to your local Apple Store or AASP to have it serviced.
Also, going forward it is helpful to us if you post information about the machine such as which model it is and the version of OS X that is installed.
I moved my iMac and it won't boot up
