Q: iMac with new ssd showing nothing but white screen and pointer
Hello,
I'm trying to fix an old (2008) imac, 20", the hdd of this mac crashed so I installed an SSD and tried to use the boot selector to boot to my bootable yosemite install usb. When I try this, booting while pressing the option key, in stead of seeing the boot selector I only see a white screen with the black pointer. I tried booting another mac to this usb, and this worked fine. Does anyone know why this happens?
Thanks in advance,
Jasper
iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)
Posted on Apr 2, 2016 2:16 PM
I don't know why the startup manager is not seeing the Yosemite Installer. Try a different USB port. Make sure you're using the USB port on the back of the machine, not on the side of your wired keyboard. Check this short KBase article for more clues.
Starting from an external USB storage device (Intel-based Macs) - Apple Support
You say you can startup another Mac using the Yosemite USB installer? If the other Mac has FireWire, you could try connecting a FireWire cable between the Macs, plug the Yosemite USB installer into the USB port on the bootable Mac, then start the bootable Mac in Target mode by holding the 'T' key down. Now see if your iMac 2008 can find a bootable partition in the startup manager when holding the option key at boot. If successful, you should be able to see the internal hard drive of the target Mac and any other bootable volumes connected to it, including the Yosemite USB installer. For more about booting a Mac in Target mode, see this KBase article.
Share files between two computers with target disk mode - Apple Support
Good luck! Let me know how it goes.
Raymond
Posted on Apr 4, 2016 12:32 AM