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Level 1

4 points

Spinning wheel

Hi!

A few months ago when I tried to do anything on my iMac, the spinning wheel would come up and not go away at all. Then recently I couldn't turn my Mac on because it would have the spinning wheel. Today I took my Mac in to the Genius Bar. They ran a diagnostic which showed 1 of my 3 fans is out. And it's too old for them to fix. But when logging on to the operating system everything was fine, no spinning ball. So they suggested I get a recent time machine and they started a time machine back up with me on a new external hard drive there to be sure it was fine. It got to 1 GB and we stopped the back up. However at home, the back up got to 1.98 GB before it stopped and got the spinning ball.

I then called apple phone support and reset some things with them. Then ran a verify disk permission. Ran for over 30 min without progressing. Re-booted, tried a disk verify, also stalled. Called apple back, ran another disk verify and got off the phone. I was told if it stalls again to take it in to an apple verified repair shop. The verify disk permissions finished, but then the repair disk permissions also got stuck with the spinning ball.

Is there anything else I can do? Is it worth it to go to the apple verified repair shop?

I'm not really at the point to get a new Mac, so how would I move my files over from my previous time machine back up to a windows machine? If I connect my external hard drive with time machine back up to another Mac and move the files over to a fat32 external hard drive and then to my windows computer. Is that the best way to transfer files?

thank you for any help you have to give!

Posted on Sep 11, 2017 6:43 PM

25 replies

Eric Root

Level 10

684,219 points

Sep 12, 2017 6:59 AM in response to Espinod06

Have you considered going to an Apple Authorized repair shop to see if they will/can fix the computer?

Authorized Service Provider

Sep 11, 2017 7:32 PM in response to Espinod06

Yes to erasing/formatting does delete all that currently exist on the drive.

Espinod06 Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 11, 2017 7:31 PM in response to Espinod06

The problem is that I cannot use my computer at all. I cannot do anything on it. So I cannot make a new back up, or get files off of it. Or use another Mac to hook up to it

Espinod06 Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 11, 2017 7:40 PM in response to Community User

I have a full time machine back up of my computer. Wgat can I do with that with my friends MAC?

Espinod06 Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 11, 2017 7:47 PM in response to Community User

Ok so if I do this, do I boot up from the external HD that contains my time machine back up. Or do I boot up on her hard drive and then open the external HD and read the time machine that way?

Sep 11, 2017 7:53 PM in response to Espinod06

You would access it through the Time Machine application, so you have to boot/log-in with her account on the Mac.

Espinod06 Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 11, 2017 8:03 PM in response to Community User

Thank you so much!

Espinod06 Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 11, 2017 8:05 PM in response to Community User

Ok thank you! I will hopefully be able to get this done this weekend so I hope it works!

Sep 11, 2017 8:07 PM in response to Espinod06

Hope it goes well. If you have more question while doing it just ask I'll try my best to response when able.

Sep 18, 2017 9:02 PM in response to Espinod06

If your friend okay with it make a second account on her computer and copy the photo library to the computer then from the photos application export the photos (you can remove all this afterwards).

Spinning wheel