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Early 2009 iMac not getting passed boot screen

D

Durkit72

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 17, 2014
2
0
Story so far.:mad::mad:

I've been through a lot of self help stuff, but still getting nowhere. Just want to see if anyone has got any further info that could help me.

HD had snow leopard on it.

I've reset pram, Checked battery, removed all external devices, tried to boot in safe etc. didnt work. I have external CD tried to boot from that - no go. Removed internal superdrive as it was always a bit flaky - didn't help. Stuck in a fresh HD and tried to boot from CD - no worky.

I did get into single user and run FSCK -F or whatever it was - was ok. On original HD BTW.

Whatever I seem to do apart from FSCK, it seems to hang after a little while and the wheel stops a spinning, with fresh HD and boot from external CD it takes about 30 seconds maybe a little longer then I get slow grey screen swipe every time.

Behind the drives there are what looks like thermal sensors - could it be them? Will probably just keep unplugging stuff now till I see a difference.

Any help will be appreciated.:D
 
killerrobot

killerrobot

macrumors 68020
Jun 7, 2007
2,239
3
127.0.0.1
Do you have the original snow leopard disks still? Boot off the second disk holding D down and it should take you to the Apple Hardware Test. Run the extended test and see if any hardware errors occur.

There's a lot of different things it could be and the AHT will help narrow it down.
 
R

richlin71

macrumors newbie
Oct 31, 2005
17
1
I just had a very similar situation with my 2009 27" inch iMac. I did a clean install and it would only boot up to a gray screen and hang there forever. I discovered that it would boot up into safe mode and it worked fine like that. This led me to believe that the problem was the graphics card, because in safe mode it skips loading the graphics drivers.

I took it to the Apple store and they found that was the problem. I had it fixed out of warranty for $250. All good now.
 
definitive

definitive

macrumors 68020
Aug 4, 2008
2,051
895
what a coincidence.. i'm having a boot up issue with my early 2009 imac as well, and there are weird rectangles and lines on my screen. started happening a couple of days ago, and now i can't boot it to desktop. was fine before 10.9.5, but maybe that's coincidence too...

looks like i'll have to either get this thing repaired at a premium price, or get a new system.
 
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