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crotographer

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 24, 2016
3
1
My iMac has been shutting itself down for two nights now. I have to press the button at the back of the monitor to get the screen on. I did not shut it off in the first place.

Today it started up the same way but had a degraded looking screen saver. I restarted it and all was normal. I then went to disc utility to run first aid just in case. For the first time the wheel (indicating loading) just kept spinning. The HDD never loaded on disc utility. So I turned it off and tried again after restart for a second time. Same thing.

The iMac itself is fine; no problem. But the disc utility not loading anything puzzles me and I believe I need to address that problem ASAP. Problem is, I am not sure how to do so. Suggestions are needed and appreciated.
 

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,073
15,498
California
Try a command-r boot to recovery and run a Disk Utility first aid from there. Before you do anything though, you should make sure you have a good backup of this system. It kinda sounds like you have a drive failing.
 

crotographer

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 24, 2016
3
1
I will give that a try. Everything is completely backed up but I certainly hope that it isn't a drive failure. The iMac is only a year old but I use it hours a day for photography and website development. Fingers crossed!
 

crotographer

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 24, 2016
3
1
Fixed. I got hold of Apple Help by phone and he walked me through unplugging the iMac for 15 seconds then plugging it back in. Then holding the on button down, letting go fo it at the same time holding down the "option", "cmd" "R" and "P".

That worked. He then had me shut it off and then start it again in "Safe" mode and then try to find the disk utility which had been missing. It was there so I ran it and it said that the disk was OK. He noted that there could be some boards that are starting to go but that it should be fine as long as I see no patterns on the screen during startup.

I am typing here so all is fine. I think this process used to be called "Zapping the Pram" in the old days. It's been a while since those days but it seems that the new Mac's are better than ever. Thanks for the help. Appreciated.
 
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