Q: iMac Installation of El Capitan Stuck or Not Working
Hey everyone,
I'm working on a 27-inch, Mid 2011 iMac that's running/was running OS X Lion 10.7.5. It belong's to a friend of mine who forgot her password and wanted me to figure out if I could reset the password for her, and then update the system.
Well, I figured out the password issue, changed it and wrote it down for her, and then proceeded to update the OS from Lion to El Capitan. After waiting an excruciatingly long amount of time for it to finish downloading through the App Store, I initiated the install, went through the prompts, and then let it work.
After about thirty minutes, I returned and found it still on the white loading screen with the Apple logo, and underneath was a progress bar that was slowly filling. I figured it was still installing as I could see the bar was making incremental progress every few seconds, so I left it to continue to work.
I came back after about 15 minutes to the same white screen, only the Apple logo and the progress bar had disappeared for some reason. I sat in front of it for a few minutes waiting for something to happen, but nothing ever did. I tried to move the mouse and found that the cursor showed up on the screen, but everything else remained the same and nothing new appeared. I waited for an hour before I got fed up and started clicking around on the screen and tapping buttons on the keyboard. Nothing happened.
After another fifteen minute wait, I reaching behind the iMac and pressed the power button for a few seconds until the whole thing shut down. I waited a few more seconds and then tapped the button again, and the iMac started up, and then went straight to the same loading screen with the Apple logo and the progress bar. The bar was at about 70% from the looks of it, and again, I could see it making tiny amounts of progress every few seconds.
Once it got to about 75%, the Apple logo and the progress bar suddenly disappeared and I was left exactly where I was before I turned the computer off. I tried this same process a few more times and every single time, it ended the same way, with me frustrated and staring at a blank screen with a cursor on it.
I'm not exactly sure if it's a faulty installation file, some sort of driver issue, a hardware issue, or something else. But I'm slowly running out of ideas and would really appreciate some help from anyone willing!
Thank you so much in advance!
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.5), Installation Problem
Posted on Sep 19, 2016 4:57 PM