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jazvillaz

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 12, 2019
4
0
Now, first of all- I want to start off by saying I am new and do not know how to use the site but I am in desperate need of help.

I have an iMac that me and my family have been using for a while. I have the iMac Aluminium Unibody, I don't know what model number it is- I just know it is that one when looking at models.

Just a few months ago, the computer was being used just fine. This iMac was reallly only used for the music library we had in there, movies, photo/document scanning, and homework, and photoshop and all those programs. It wasn't used for internet use really, we have a laptop that is passed around upstairs.

But as I said, just a few months ago it was working fine, then a few days later it would not turn on completely. You turn it on, the start up sound comes in, the white screen with the apple logo appears, and it loads maybe a quarter before it shuts down/powers off. We tried everything to turn it on, like different power sources, taking the main switch out in the back, and nothing.

Months later, like today, I decided to go down and check to see if it will maybe possibly turn on.

Nothing. Does the same thing, starts up with the sounds, white loading screen, then a quarter in- shuts off.

My question is, because I have many important family documents, and family photos inside that I would like from the computer, is there any way to get into the internal harddrive and save anything I possibly can.

It may sound like a stupid question but again, I don't know too much.

I know you can open the computer and take out the internal harddrive, but is there anyway to save the files from inside that harddrive to gain all the important photos and documents. That's all I wish to recover from inside that hard drive, anything else- I don't care for.
 

mikehalloran

macrumors 68020
Oct 14, 2018
2,239
666
The Sillie Con Valley
“Hi, i have a car. It doesn’t work. What’s wrong?”

Your post isn’t quite that bad but it’s pretty close.

We need to know what year and model. What kind of drives? This is important.

Try booting with the Shift key held down. This is called a Safe Boot. Does it boot in Safe mode? This process can easily take a half hour or more if a mechanical hard drive (HDD) so be patient but, if an hour later you are still holding down the shift key, you have a hardware problem.
 

jazvillaz

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 12, 2019
4
0
“Hi, i have a car. It doesn’t work. What’s wrong?”

Your post isn’t quite that bad but it’s pretty close.

We need to know what year and model. What kind of drives? This is important.

Try booting with the Shift key held down. This is called a Safe Boot. Does it boot in Safe mode? This process can easily take a half hour or more if a mechanical hard drive (HDD) so be patient but, if an hour later you are still holding down the shift key, you have a hardware problem.
Honestly, I don't know what I did. I messed with the terminal- I messed with the utility disk. My goal coming into this was to recover as many files as I could without deleting the internal hard drive. As I said, I don't know what I did but hours later, I got into my dead internal hard drive and currently will be up for the next five hours trying to save everything.
 
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