iMac running OS X Mountain Lion suddenly would not start up, showing just the grey screen and the rotating wheel of death!
Have referenced many articles and tried various options at reboot (CMD + R, Shift, Option, CMD + S) with varying degrees of success to actually access the Mac and use Disk Utility to verify permissions and try (unsuccessfully) to Repair Disk. Am unable to reload/download the OS X as the error message confirms that error occurred while preparing the installation and that the disk should be reformatted after saving files.
I have backups of files (documents, iPhoto library, iTunes library etc) hopefully saved to Time Capsule, though not the entire disk structure.
1. Is there anything further I can try to repair the disk, and reload the OS?
2. How can I check that the Time Capsule has a recent back up of all files? And how do I then access them (I do have a MacBook Pro)?
3. Is there a way to take a backup of all files including music library, photos library etc from the hard drive (before reformatting)?
4. What is the process for reformatting and reloading the OS X, and files?
Thanks
