Q: Spinning ball no matter what I do
I have a 2011 iMac still using Snow Leopard. I realize it's an old OS but I only use it for writing projects and will eventually replace it one day. It has been fine with zero problems, until now. I was out of town for a week and it was powered off. I turned it back on yesterday. Boots up fine, desktop looks normal. No matter what I try to do--backup via Time Machine, get email, anything!--the spinning ball appears and I'm frozen. I have to hold down the power switch to get it to stop. The only thing that has worked is Disk Utility > Verify Disk, which reported Zero Problems. Well, something ain't right. I have booted with the DVD and still the spinning ball.
The spinning ball doesn't appear until I click on something, anything.
I'm reluctant to pay for a possible repair, because in the long run I'd be better off buying a new iMac. I'd prefer to get this one operational again myself and get a little more mileage out of it.
Any suggestions? I mostly work with my 2015 MacBook Pro and the iMac's latest backup is December 2015. I wouldn't be losing much if I could restore everything from that point.
Posted on Feb 9, 2016 7:33 AM

