Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT
i ran the disk repair, on HD, it came back corrupt, ran the disk repair and came back successfully fixed..reboot, and the same grey screen and spinning timer.. Not sure what's going on. I then tried safe mode, still grey screen spinning time ( not the color wheel).. Any suggestions here? Thank you...
iMAC, Mac OS X (10.6.7), 3.06GHz Intel Core i3
Replace the hard disk drive and restore its contents from a backup.
The purpose of using Disk Utility to "repair" a disk with read / write errors is to attain a state in which you can boot from or mount it for the purpose of extracting whatever information remains intact, and storing it on an intact volume. "Repair" is not a permanent solution for a hard disk drive that has failed.
Thank you John...replace the HD drive with what? An external drive? ... I cannot get into the computer it's a grey screen and spinning timer, this after reboot, its got to go in the shop... I understand repair isn't always the solution, but if it said HD was corrupted and after running disk repair, HD is fixed... then.? It seems to me, that if the minor things are fixed, Im not a techie that can read codes and figure out what needs fixing, then ultimately it goes to the shop. :/ ohh well... I have only used Mac's for the last 20+ years and this is the first time this has happened on any of them, pretty good stats there!
...replace the HD drive with what? An external drive?
If that is acceptable to you, sure, that's one option.
HD was corrupted and after running disk repair, HD is fixed... then.?
It is possible for Disk Utility to "repair" the HD to the point that it can be mounted. Disk Utility will report that it has been "fixed" but it might not survive even the next boot attempt.
The reason it can no longer be relied upon that whatever anomaly caused the corruption to occur in the first place will remain. Those causes are often microscopic environmental contaminants (e.g dust, pet dander, smoke particles) that accumulate within the less-than-perfectly sealed enclosure, causing head crashes and the corruption that results from them. If the drive survives long enough its spindle will eventually wear to the point it becomes rotationally unstable. In either case, it's junk, throw it out.
Hard disks are all wear items that will require eventual replacement, and yours is (I'm guessing) five years old or so? Fortunately hard disk drives are inexpensive to purchase, but replacing an iMac's internal hard disk is a tedious procedure. You can do it for considerably less than $100 if you are mechanically inclined and sufficiently motivated, or Apple can do it for $400, perhaps a bit less.
Solid state drives used in newer Macs don't have those problems, but they have other failure modes so they don't last forever either.
Thank you for that information John... My iMac is coming on 4 years old. My working environment is clean, and no smoking allowed, and I have been diligent on keeping it clean. However my sisters iMac ( the one that is in question ) hasn't had a smoke free spotless environment, her iMac is 5 years old running Mt.Lion. I have never taken apart a mac, and its way out of my abilities to do so. I guess this is going to cost a chunk o cash to repair... sadly.
After startup in safe mode I still get grey screen and spinning timer
