2009 iMac has no hard drive showing after restore and crash

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2009 iMac has no hard drive showing after restore and crash

My 2009 iMac running 10.9.5 Mavericks locked up and I had to restore it from backup. After I restored it, it made 2 backups and then crashed. When I tried to restore it again there was no Hard Drive available. All I got when starting up was a blinking folder with a question mark. When I started up off a disk (10.6) there was no hard drive available. The system profiler showed no applications and no hard drive. Does anyone know how to ix this, or is it not fixable? Thanks, DJ

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)

Posted on May 5, 2016 1:52 PM

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Answer 1

macjack

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May 5, 2016 1:56 PM in response to LocoDJ

Restart in Recovery Mode and then reformat the disk from DiskUtility in Recovery. Try again.

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Answer 2

LocoDJ Author

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May 5, 2016 2:54 PM in response to macjack

What is recovery mode? How do I implement it?

Thanks,

DJ

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Answer 3

Old Toad

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May 5, 2016 2:53 PM in response to LocoDJ

To boot into the Recovery volume restart with the Command + R keys held down.

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Answer 4

LocoDJ Author

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May 5, 2016 3:04 PM in response to Old Toad

Unfortunately this did not work. Should I have booted up fromj the disc first? Thanks, DJ

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Answer 5

macjack

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May 5, 2016 4:47 PM in response to LocoDJ

What doesn't work, booting with command + R and re-formatting your HDD?

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Answer 6

May 5, 2016 7:01 PM in response to LocoDJ

You're probably not going to like the answer but I believe your hard-drive is toast. If it's not complete toast yet, it's about to be. My iMac did the exact same thing. I got a WD external hard-drive and made a backup/bootable drive, also called a hackintosh. I was able to see both drives in Disk Utility. I then transferred all of my files from the dead iMac drive to the WD external hard-drive. I got an email almost immediately from Apple saying that the hard-drives were defective. A few weeks later, Apple replaced it for free. 27" iMac late 2009 model. Contact Apple and ask them if yours is a part of that recall.

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Answer 7

LocoDJ Author

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May 6, 2016 6:56 AM in response to macjack

I only used command+R without the disc. I will try with the disc. Thanks, DJ

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Answer 8

LocoDJ Author

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May 6, 2016 9:15 AM in response to macjack

No use, I used the disc and it booted up but there was nothing about recovery. I brought up the disk utility but there was no HD and then it froze. Thanks anyway,

DJ

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Answer 9

macjack

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May 6, 2016 9:22 AM in response to LocoDJ

Let's see if it's mounted or mountable... from either approach command + R or DVD...

From Utilities Menu launch Terminal and copy & paste this command at the prompt:

diskutil list

Press return.

If it sees the disk, note the number of the disk (far left column) you want to mount.

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Answer 10

LocoDJ Author

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May 6, 2016 9:51 AM in response to macjack

Here is what I got:

-bash-3.2# diskutil list

/dev/disk1

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: Apple_partition_scheme *7.8 GB disk1

1: Apple_partition_map 30.7 KB disk1s1

2: Apple_Driver_ATAPI 1.0 GB disk1s2

3: Apple_HFS Mac OS X Install DVD 6.7 GB disk1s3

/dev/disk2

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: untitled *524.3 KB disk2

/dev/disk3

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: untitled *524.3 KB disk3

/dev/disk4

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: untitled *524.3 KB disk4

/dev/disk5

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: untitled *524.3 KB disk5

/dev/disk6

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: untitled *524.3 KB disk6

/dev/disk7

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: untitled *1.0 MB disk7

-bash-3.2#

Not sure what to do with it. No matter what I try I can't get the HD to appear anywhere that I could select it.

Thanks again,

DJ

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Answer 11

macjack

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May 6, 2016 10:24 AM in response to LocoDJ

Do you have 6 connected disks?

Then, enter this command:

mount /dev/(number of disk from far left column)

Put in the number no parenthesis.

Press Return.

Also might try

mount force /dev/(number of disk)

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Answer 12

LocoDJ Author

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May 6, 2016 11:31 AM in response to macjack

That didn't work either. Also 'force mount' returns a not found error, so I just used 'mount'.

I have had several external drives and other computer's hooked up to this machine over the years, but nothing but a mouse and a keybo9ard are plugged into the iMac.

I'm guessing that the HD is toast or beyond repair. I will send a ticket to Apple.

Thanks again,

DJ

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