I am having issues with my 2013 iMac 27” booting up. It freezes on the Apple logo and loading bar. I have tried everything an I am out of ideas on what to do. Any suggestions or ideas of what the problem is?
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2013 iMac 27” Boot Issues
- Thread starter Tokenfreak
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It is El Capitan, but I want to upgrade it but having all these issues now.
I have tried safe boot (holding that the shift key) and it loads up to the Apple logo and loading bar and then freezes.
See everything else I tried below.
I have also tried the Internet recovery (Command-Option-R) and it loads up to the internet recovery screen with the globe, the loading bar, and the time remaining just fine. After, that it goes back to the Apple logo with the loading bar a little over 50% and then freezes.
I have also tried single user mode (Command-S) and it boots up to a lot of text on the screen and a command prompt. What am I suppose to do now that I am here? Is there a command I need to run or something that I can get it working again? Thanks
I have also tried just recovery (Command-R) and it loads up to the Apple logo with the loading bar about 25% of the way and then freezes. After, a few more minutes the screen goes black.
I have also tried verbose mode (Command-V) and it loads up and shows a bunch of text all over the screen and then freezes and nothing more happens.
I have also tried installing Catalina via USB drive and it loads up the Apple logo and freeze about 75% on the loading bar. I have also tried and older OS like El Capitan and the same issue.
I have also tried resetting the PRAM with (Command-Option-P-R) and it seems to work as I can hear the different chimes on boot, but it still doesn't load the OS ans freezes on the Apple logo and loading bar.
I have also tried unplugging the power cord for long periods of time and then plugging it back in and it does work. Still the samething with it freezing on the Apple logo and loading bar.
I have also tried (Pressing D) for the diagnostics test and it comes back with no issues.
Any more ideas? I'm not sure what to do at this point? Thanks.
It is a 512 GB SSD.
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You probably (somehow) need to test the SSD.
I think your first chance is Single User mode.
When the text scrolls down, and you get the command prompt - a couple of lines up are your possible next steps.
Run the fsck command
type
then press enter to run that command. Should show a few results, testing the drive directory.
If you get a result with errors, that may simply be showing you that the drive is failing.
If the command runs, no errors, and reports no problems, then run the mount command
(there's a space between mount and -uw, and another space between the -uw and the final / )
I would try booting to an external drive with a macOS bootable system installed, just as a test to see if your iMac will boot to ANYTHING. Or, get a bootable macOS installer - maybe you can successfully boot to that. You can also try Disk Utility while booted to the installer, to try to run First Aid on the drive.
Do you have another Mac, or have access to one? (it's a simpler process to make a bootable macOS installer on a Mac, but can be built on a windows PC, if that's all you have... )
I think your first chance is Single User mode.
When the text scrolls down, and you get the command prompt - a couple of lines up are your possible next steps.
Run the fsck command
type
Code:
/sbin/fsck -fyIf you get a result with errors, that may simply be showing you that the drive is failing.
If the command runs, no errors, and reports no problems, then run the mount command
Code:
/sbin/mount -uw /I would try booting to an external drive with a macOS bootable system installed, just as a test to see if your iMac will boot to ANYTHING. Or, get a bootable macOS installer - maybe you can successfully boot to that. You can also try Disk Utility while booted to the installer, to try to run First Aid on the drive.
Do you have another Mac, or have access to one? (it's a simpler process to make a bootable macOS installer on a Mac, but can be built on a windows PC, if that's all you have... )
I ran the file system check command above and got the following output. I don't see any errors.
I also ran the mount command right afterwards and it worked fine with no errors. It didn't print anything though, but I don't think it was suppose to.
I do have another Mac I can use to make a bootable macOS installer. I actually already have a El Capitan and Catalina bootable USB installer. The El Capitan installer has loaded up once for me and I was able to reinstall El Capitan without any issues. It came up and I was able to use the operating system until I rebooted. When I rebooted it went back to the Apple Logo and loading bar and I could never get back into El Capitan. I have tried booting again from the El Capitan macOS USB installer and now it doesn't work. It freezes on the Apple logo and loading bar. The Catalilna installer does the same thing.
How do I make a macOS bootable system installed on an external drive? I assume this is the whole macOS system already installed right? Its not like the bootable installer where it has to install it to the internal drive correct?
Thanks for your help. I really appreciate it a lot.
OP:
Since you have a USB bootable flashdrive (with El Cap on it)
and
Since you were able to get the iMac booted up from that
but
Since it seems to have problems booting the OS from the internal drive
Have you considered...
... Getting an EXTERNAL USB3 drive,
then
Booting from the USB flashdrive installer
and
Install a copy of the OS onto the EXTERNAL drive, to see if that can be made bootable?
Another thought...
I'm wondering if there could be a problem with the iMac's discrete GPU (if it has one)?
When you boot to the verbose mode (which I assume would not use a discrete GPU), it boots.
When you boot from an external USB installer (which may not use the discrete GPU either) it runs and installs,
but...
... when you try to boot from the internal drive, a "normal" boot (that I believe will switch over to the discrete GPU), it fails.
Just an idea.
I could be wrong.
Since you have a USB bootable flashdrive (with El Cap on it)
and
Since you were able to get the iMac booted up from that
but
Since it seems to have problems booting the OS from the internal drive
Have you considered...
... Getting an EXTERNAL USB3 drive,
then
Booting from the USB flashdrive installer
and
Install a copy of the OS onto the EXTERNAL drive, to see if that can be made bootable?
Another thought...
I'm wondering if there could be a problem with the iMac's discrete GPU (if it has one)?
When you boot to the verbose mode (which I assume would not use a discrete GPU), it boots.
When you boot from an external USB installer (which may not use the discrete GPU either) it runs and installs,
but...
... when you try to boot from the internal drive, a "normal" boot (that I believe will switch over to the discrete GPU), it fails.
Just an idea.
I could be wrong.
Have you ever upgraded the memory in your iMac?
How much RAM is installed now?
When did all this start happening (1 month/3 months/right after I installed more memory - or some other thing that you have added to your iMac - hardware, or software (?) )
@Fishrrman: there's no difference for the GPU either booting to an internal or an external system. (Bootable installer would certainly be a minimal system, but a fully installed system on an external drive would use same hardware as an internal boot drive.
But, it would be a Good Thing™ to try installing an El Cap system to an external USB drive, and see if that will boot successfully (particularly the second time!)
How much RAM is installed now?
When did all this start happening (1 month/3 months/right after I installed more memory - or some other thing that you have added to your iMac - hardware, or software (?) )
@Fishrrman: there's no difference for the GPU either booting to an internal or an external system. (Bootable installer would certainly be a minimal system, but a fully installed system on an external drive would use same hardware as an internal boot drive.
But, it would be a Good Thing™ to try installing an El Cap system to an external USB drive, and see if that will boot successfully (particularly the second time!)
I think I caused some confusion as I am unable to boot my iMac with the El Capitan USB flashdrive. It loads up the Apple logo and stalls on the the loading bar. I can boot my other Mac with the USB flashdrive just fine though so I know nothing is wrong with it.
I think it might be something with the GPU too. Is there anyway I can test and find out?
Since I've had the iMac in 2013 it has always had 32 GB of RAM. I've never change the RAM or anything in it.
This started happening in April 2020 after running fine since late 2013.
You should be able to boot to the built-in diagnostics.
Unless you really want to stay with El Capitan, I would suggest that you try booting to a newer installer. High Sierra (or maybe Mojave) might be a good choice (?). You can download High Sierra through this support page (Mojave, too)
At a minimum, I would also suggest that you make a different bootable installer, regardless of the system that you want to install. "booting just fine on another Mac" does not necessarily mean that the bootable installer that you are using now is going to work reliably on every kind of Mac.
I have the macOS installers that I commonly use on a variety of different media, including a 7200rpm SATA drive, USB flash drive, USB SSD, and USB with NVMe card. Some of those devices struggle on some Macs. When that happens to me, I just try booting to a different installer. I usually succeed. Your problem MIGHT be an SSD nearing end-of-life -- it's possible.
Unless you really want to stay with El Capitan, I would suggest that you try booting to a newer installer. High Sierra (or maybe Mojave) might be a good choice (?). You can download High Sierra through this support page (Mojave, too)
At a minimum, I would also suggest that you make a different bootable installer, regardless of the system that you want to install. "booting just fine on another Mac" does not necessarily mean that the bootable installer that you are using now is going to work reliably on every kind of Mac.
I have the macOS installers that I commonly use on a variety of different media, including a 7200rpm SATA drive, USB flash drive, USB SSD, and USB with NVMe card. Some of those devices struggle on some Macs. When that happens to me, I just try booting to a different installer. I usually succeed. Your problem MIGHT be an SSD nearing end-of-life -- it's possible.
In almost all cases it is first necessary to use Disk Utility on your Bootable Installer to erase the target HD (at the Media Level). If you have not done that there is a good chance you will have conflicts.
Well, yes, I would certainly recommend erasing the device in this case, as the OP was already experiencing problems with both booting and reinstalling.
I do not agree that erasing is necessary in "almost all cases", but it is a step that I often use as a verification that the drive is functioning well enough to endure a full erase. I don't see as many erase failures now with SSDs as I have seen with HDDs, but still something that I like to do to make sure the drive is "happy"
I do not agree that erasing is necessary in "almost all cases", but it is a step that I often use as a verification that the drive is functioning well enough to endure a full erase. I don't see as many erase failures now with SSDs as I have seen with HDDs, but still something that I like to do to make sure the drive is "happy"