Bizarre iMac freeze fault, advice appreciated

[bewarned]

Hi,

I have ran out of ideas with an issue with my mac and would really like some input from more experienced people.

My iMac started by freezing on the loading screen just before you'd expect the login screen to appear. I tried safe booting, but it did the same. I tried several installation repairs, but the installation repair either froze with the beach ball spinning or came back with an error. I ran the extended diagnostics, which came back fine. So I backed up my data via my macbook pro and formatted the drive. Now the installation process with Snow Leopard or Lion OSX also start, but freeze in when it reaches around 80% complete. Freezes as in the progress bar stops moving and the beach ball appears, but the mouse still move.

I am at a loss now, if anymore has any advice i'd be so grateful.

The iMac model is: iMac8,1 27", Core 2 Duo 2.80GHz.

Could the fault be hardware?

Thanks in advance, Ian.

 

[blueroom]

Sounds like your HDD is dying.

 

[bewarned]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I am just trying a second hard drive, I hope that is the fault in a way. At least I can easily resolve that issue!

I will report back with what happens.

Thanks again.

 

[bewarned]

Hi,

Lion installed to my external drive fine and I have ordered a new hard drive.

Thank you for your help! )

 

[bewarned]

Hi,

So I installed a new drive and it seems to be doing the same freezing thing???

Bit strange, so USB external drive installed fine but the Sara internal drive again froze 75% through installation?

Could this indicate a logicboard fault? If anybody has any advice I'd be so grateful. Would running the OSX off an external drive be really slow or cause problems?

Thanks again,

Ian.