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Help/Guidance neede please!

J

james.farrow

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 8, 2012
9
0
Gurus, my iMac has started to ’lock up' unexpectedly now and then. The only way to recover is hold power button and restart :( I use time machine so everything is backed up. I have lots of photos, and videos of family etc that I can not lose, and of course iTunes media as well. I am going to clean install lion and then restore my iMac from time machine backup. Can anyone give me a step by step guide of how to achieve this, it's imperative that I keep my media etc.
Many thanks for your help in advance!

James
 
fisherking

fisherking

macrumors G4
Jul 16, 2010
11,084
5,432
ny somewhere
first, since you have time machine running, you should not lose anything...
it's all there on your backup.

before you reinstall...it could be a hardware issue. so...someone?
shouldn't he try an smc or pram reset first?

anyway, someone else needs to jump in. just wanted to say: don't panic...!
 
Razorhog

Razorhog

macrumors 65816
Sep 16, 2006
1,148
116
Arkansas
Is your iMac still under warranty? If so, call Applecare or take to Apple store. If not, I think installing a fresh copy of the OS is a good idea. If it fixes the problem, you're golden. If not, start trouble shooting hardware. "locking up" is very likely hardware though. You know the refresh of the iMac should be just around the corner......
 
J

james.farrow

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 8, 2012
9
0
Warranty - alas no I bought it late 2009 :( it has only just started to happen and is very intermittent, but annoying! I've reset smc and pram, it does seem better. I would still like to go down the clean install route though... So any guidance or how to's would be appreciated!!!
 
J

james.farrow

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 8, 2012
9
0
Thanks, I've had a good look round and as it only started to happen a couple of days ago I'm going to restore from a time machine backup prior to the 'issues' and go from there. Mountain Lion is just around the corner so I may bite the bullet and clean install that and ask a few questions again :)

thanks for all your help

James
 
Alameda

Alameda

macrumors 6502a
Jun 22, 2012
927
546
"Hardware" can mean anything, but the one thing you can try to fix is the RAM. Have you installed a memory upgrade?

My daughter's Mac Mini locked up often after I installed a RAM upgrade. Removing the new memory solved the problem. If you can access the RAM, remove half of it, see if the problem goes away. If the problem remains, put it back in and replace the other half.

If the problem remains, well, sorry about that.
 
J

james.farrow

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 8, 2012
9
0
I have restored from backup and so far everything is ok! No more lock ups and iMac seem 'quicker' somehow...

Anyway role on Mountain Lion and see what happens there :)

James
 
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