Reinstall Leopard after white screen?

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Level 1

31 points

Reinstall Leopard after white screen?

I have an iMac that came with Tiger. It has been upgraded to Snow Leopard, and then to Lion.

Today it froze, with the spinning beach ball of death. After shutting down with the power button, it won't start up. All it has is a white screen, no startup chime, no logo. one or two attempts also resulted in a circle with a slash through it.

The optical drive doesn't work, so I inserted the disk into an external drive and have been able to get the install window up. Please see photo:

THe options button says there is not enough space and I must erase and install. How can that be when this shows 112 GB of free space?

More importantly, will this solve the problem?

iMac (20-inch Late 2006), Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Jan 12, 2016 3:40 PM

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Answer 1

SeaPapp

Level 7

26,492 points

Jan 12, 2016 4:56 PM in response to peakachu

If you installed Lion you should have a recovery partition. What happens when you restart while holding Command-R

In order to revert from Lion to Snow Leopard you need to erase the disk. You do have a backup to restore from right?

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Answer 2

peakachu Author

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31 points

Jan 12, 2016 5:49 PM in response to peakachu

Recovery didnt work, no chimes, no startup, nothing.

Would it be better to use the original system disks (Tiger) or go right to Snow Leopard? Not much backed up Lately, unfortunately.

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Answer 3

SeaPapp

Level 7

26,492 points

Jan 12, 2016 6:18 PM in response to peakachu

Install Snow Leopard, anything previous would just be an unnecessary step. If you have another mac and can start your frozen one in Target Disk Mode you can get things backed up before you have to wipe the disk. How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk mode - Apple Support

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Answer 4

peakachu Author

Level 1

31 points

Jan 12, 2016 6:57 PM in response to SeaPapp

Will look into this when I get the chance. May be able to borrow a laptop.

ok, I don't know how the 'solved' check mark got there! How do I undo that??

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Answer 5

peakachu Author

Level 1

31 points

Jan 21, 2016 8:07 AM in response to peakachu

We connected a Blueberry iMac and tried target disk mode but nothing showed up on the Blueberry's desktop. We attempted to install the original system several times. It appears to finish installation but when it restarts it has a folder with a question mark or circle with a slash through it, and finally the blue screen with the system software installation disk. It never gets to the point of asking for the second disk. We have verified and repaired the hard drive and permissions more than once.

Any suggestions?

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Answer 6

SeaPapp

Level 7

26,492 points

Jan 21, 2016 9:40 AM in response to peakachu

Did you partition the drive using the GUID partition scheme and format it as Mac OS Extended Journaled? You cannot install OS X without doing that.

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Answer 7

peakachu Author

Level 1

31 points

Jan 21, 2016 12:34 PM in response to SeaPapp

Partition the drive? No, I've never done that before when installing or upgrading...

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Answer 8

peakachu Author

Level 1

31 points

Jan 21, 2016 12:53 PM in response to peakachu

So this is what you're saying?

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Answer 9

SeaPapp

Level 7

26,492 points

Jan 21, 2016 1:24 PM in response to peakachu

Exactly. Then format as mentioned above.

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Answer 10

peakachu Author

Level 1

31 points

Jan 21, 2016 1:35 PM in response to SeaPapp

Ookay, but it makes me nervous when it says "partitioning a disk will destroy all information on the volume of the disk. The disk has one volume: Macintosh HD. Are you sure..?"

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