iMac issues.

[Iainfixie]

Hello,

I recently obtained a 2008 (I think) model iMac (aluminum 2GHZ core2duo, 1GB ram, 250GB hdd) and when I power it on it goes to a grey screen with the apple logo and a "progress bar". I plugged in my Thermaltake USB gaming keyboard and tried to do the "shift+boot", "alt+boot" tricks but to no avail (the keyboard doesn't "light up" until well after the mac starts it's progresss bar thingy.

I got this thing for free in a trade of my old blackbook macbook (I currently use a mid-2012 13" Macbook pro, and have a banging gaming desktop.) So I want to get this thing working 100% as a "guest" computer, or "studio" computer for my apartment.

What should I do first? If the hard-drive is bork does this mean I need to pull the screen? Please help me, as the most I've even done is replace HDD's in My black macbook, and replace the ram in my MBP!

Thanks!

Iain Fixie.

 

[fastlanephil]

I take it the iMac won't boot.

1.You could try zapping the pram by restarting while holding down the P R A and M keys until you hear it chime a couple of times.

2.If that doesn't do it you could try booting from a OSX DVD version that it came with or later and try reformatting the hard drive and installing a new OS on it.

3.If that doesn't work test the memory and hard drive with the utilities on the DVD. If you have a bad hard drive go to ifixit.com and check out their instructions for replacing the hard drive. It won't be an easy repair.

 

[jollino]

1.You could try zapping the pram by restarting while holding down the P R A and M keys until you hear it chime a couple of times.

Shouldn't that be option+command+P+R?

 

[Iainfixie]

Thanks for the quick replies!

However, I do not have an apple wired keyboard. I've only even used Apple laptops, and I am unsure of what I would need to make this thing work. I have snow leopard on a bootable partition on my external drive. (used it to format and wipe my old blackbook macbook) and when I boot my iMac it appears to not "turn on" until well after the machine is doing the progress bar loading screen. Shortly after getting to 1/4th filled the computer auto-shut down's on me.


I'm guessing the HDD is bork, So I should probably get a new one and get to repairing it.

 

[Iainfixie]

Maybe I should just find a local fix-it guy, the repair manual for removing the screen and getting at the HDD is daunting, to say the least. I'm not sure my technical prowess would allow me the good fortune of not making a mistake inside of it.