iMac won't fully boot and gets stuck in a loop

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iMac won't fully boot and gets stuck in a loop

I have a 2008 24" iMac (4GB RAM and 3mhz). It had Yosemite installed on it soon after it came out and worked fine. However a week or so ago it froze and wouldn't do anything, so I turned it off by pressing and holding the power button. I left it over night and unplugged it. Upon trying to re-start it i get the initial chime and a white screen, with a grey progress bar with the apple logo above it. About a quarter way through the progress bar I get a message saying

Your computer restarted because of a problem. Press a key or wait a few seconds to continue starting up.

Once I do that, it appear to shut down, screen goes black and the same process repeats. This will continue until i get bored and press and hold the power button down again.

Ive done an extended hardware test, which shows no issues.

What's happening and what can i do?

iMac (24-inch Early 2008), OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)

Posted on Jul 21, 2015 5:38 AM

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Answer 1

rkaufmann87

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140,418 points

Jul 21, 2015 6:06 AM in response to widonme

Follow all of the steps to the letter in Gray screen appears during startup

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Answer 2

widonme Author

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Jul 22, 2015 4:04 AM in response to rkaufmann87

Thanks for the reply.

Doesnt make any difference though, and I am unsure what you mean 'follow all the steps', there are no steps to do in that article, except entering a password when asked. As mentioned in the original post i turn it on and then get a 1/4 way through the progress bar and the computer resets, without me being given an option to do anything. Its then stuck in a loop of turning on, getting an error message and so on.

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Answer 3

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,418 points

Jul 22, 2015 5:45 AM in response to widonme

Apple has apparently updated that article to what I thought I was sending you to. Try resetting the PRAM and SMC, do each 23 times.

Intel iMac SMC and PRAM resets

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