Late-2009 iMac suddenly won't boot

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Level 1

8 points

Late-2009 iMac suddenly won't boot

I was living out of the country off and on from October 2010 to April 2011, then left again from June 2011 till March 2015. So during the longer period, I wrapped up my iMac (Intel Core 2 Duo) and put it in my friend's apartment. Because of then switching to a laptop and not thinking about my iMac, I had no idea that a couple years ago there was an offer to replace faulty hard drives of my exact model (although I've long passed the deadline so I can't verify my serial number qualified).

It's been bothersome ever since returning in March. I immediately had to reformat the drive and copy over everything from my backup, which was surprising. I have always had two partitions, one for the system and all of my "work" files (like design files, writings, etc) and another for photos, videos, music. The computer ran OK until mid-June (although it froze a lot and required frequent restarts), when it suddenly wouldn't boot. I was able to boot from external, clone any new files I had made, but when I tried to do a disk repair & verify on the startup partition of the internal drive, then I received an error/warning and that partition disappeared from the Finder.

The first time this happened, I reformatted the whole drive. But only about a week and a half later, it crashed again. And then again. Now knowing the general behavior, I clone drive before verifying, because the drive then always disappears when verification is attempted. The last two times I only erased the system partition, repairing it while it's empty (but getting response that there's nothing wrong with the drive), and then re-copied files. Didn't touch the huge photo/video/music portion of the drive. But I could only boot from the internal drive for a short period til it would crash again.

Sorry this is such a long description. Point is, it's still not working, and while it's a nearly-6-years-old computer, I wasn't using it for several years so it shouldn't be overworked. For the third time since mid-June, I'm now running on the external drive. It's a bit confusing that most of the drive still seems to work, the files are all there, it just won't boot. I haven't tried to verify/repair the photo partition, though.

Any thoughts about this? I live in NYC and don't have a car, so getting to an Apple Store without knowing the reason is not convenient.

iMac (21.5-inch Late 2009), Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Jul 6, 2015 11:45 AM

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Answer 1

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,478 points

Jul 6, 2015 11:49 AM in response to NChuang

Take in in for repair, take a cab and when you get there ask for assistance bringing the computer in. Hopefully you have a backup of the computer, if you do this will only be a minor inconvenience. While you are at the Apple Store ask to see if your computer could be covered under the program. It never hurts to ask.

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Answer 2

NChuang Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 6, 2015 11:53 AM in response to rkaufmann87

Do you know what the reason was for the hard drive replacement program? I only came across it when search google about "hard drive replacement" (thinking I could get average prices) and a CNET article about the deadline being extended came up. But I wasn't really finding the original reason for the program. I had to replace the drive on my laptop as well, and in that case it was the connecting cable that had burned out.

I definitely have backups upon backups--two external drives, laptop is also cloned. (although it was little hard to keep track of the 2-week period when I was trying to use both the internal and external at the same time).

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Answer 3

Jul 6, 2015 11:59 AM in response to NChuang

Welcome to the discussions,

It sounds like you have a failing hard drive.

It being a 2009, your computer is 6 years old and if started suddenly.

There are several different brand and they range in prices from $30.00 up.

Take it to your nearest Apple Dealer or re-seller and let them have a look at it and they can give you an exact price as well as determining the problem.

Good Luck and Cheers

Don Morgan

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