Home Forums Hardware Mac Desktops & Notebooks imac can't boot up

hello,

I'm new here. Having this kind of problem my imac can't boot up when i press power bottom i heard the start up and it stay in white screen. I tried zapping the PRAM. Also do insert the disc 1 of my os x still the same happened it stayed on white screen with folder blinking with the question mark on it. Thanks for help. Appreciated.

Welcome to Fine Tuned Mac, mastervision.

It would be helpful if you gave us more information:

1. Which iMac model do you have? How much RAM?
2. Which version of OS X are you using?
3. Are you using an OS X disk that came with your computer? A disk that came with a different model (which, by the way, won't work with your computer)? A disk that you bought in order to upgrade the OS?
4. When you got the blinking question mark after inserting the OS X disk, were you trying to boot from the disk by pressing and holding C during the boot process?
5. Were you having any problems previous to this that might be relevant?

Any and all information will be helpful in solving this issue.

Good luck and keep us informed.

1. model imac 7.1 RAM 2 gig.
2. OS X 10.4.11
3. Im not sure on the disk but im sure that the disk im using is on the same model on my imac.
4. after i restart five times i guess then i got the blinking question mark with no disk of OS X inside. Yup trying to boot by pressing C during the boot process.
5. No just encountered this problem.

I also thinking that my OS are corrupted. Actually its working fine then suddenly it stop responding and i reboot it then it stack there on plain white screen the blinking question mark appears like every certain time. Thank for the help Jon.

OK, let's try a couple of things.

The blinking question indicates that the computer cannot find a valid OS on the hard drive. Can you successfully boot from the 10.4 disk? In case you're doing something wrong: Insert the disk and restart while pressing and holding C.* Release the key when you see the Apple logo and be patient because it may take several minutes to boot from the disk. Follow the procedures in Mac OS X - Using Disk Utility to Repair a Disk. You might want to check SMART status first, just to see if the hard drive is healthy. If there are problems with the drive, reinstalling the OS won't help; the only recourse is to replace the drive.

Run Repair Disk and Repair Permissions, assuming that the drive is OK. If any repairs are made (and repeat Repair Disk in that case because multiple problems may require several passes), try rebooting normally to see if that helped. If not, you may have to run Archive and Install. Before doing so, you could try one of the heavy-duty utilities (Disk Warrior, TechTool Pro or Drive Genius if you have one of them). They are all more powerful than Disk Utility. All of these repair the directory, not the operating system. If they find errors that cannot be repaired, do not run Archive&Install; it will make things worse. In that case, you'll have to try a method of recovering your important files (you do have backups, I hope) and then erase the drive, reinstalling from scratch.

*An alternative method is to insert the disk and restart while pressing and holding Option. Release the key when you see a choice of startup disks, select the DVD and press Return. As before, it will take several minutes to boot from the disk.

Keep us posted and good luck.

As I am sure you know, your blinking question mark indicates your system is unable to find a bootable volume. The fact you are encountering this on both the optical drive and the hard drive would seem to point to a hardware problem of some sort. In some cases, a failed hard drive can prevent the system from being able to access the internal optical drive as well.

In a case such as I described, you can often boot from an external firewire or USB drive because the data path in that case is entirely independent of the internal ATA/SATA system. I keep a bootable external drive around for that very reason. If you don't have the bootable external drive probably your best bet is a visit to the Genius Desk at the nearest Apple store. Don't forget to make an appointment before going in. It will save a lot of time and frustration on your part.

Probably 85% of flashing folders I run into end up being failed hard drives. A trained ear can positively identify most of them. Are you hearing any repetitive sounds or whining or strange tones from the center of the machine where the foot attaches?

To add to V1's post, Data Cent's Hard Drive Sounds may give you a clue.

Those are some interesting ones, though not many that I actually have heard before. Not hard to tell they're all bad news, but interesting variety. Maybe not a good cross section of what apple uses?