iMac not starting, stuck on loading screen

[JajoPGH]

For the past two days, I have been trying to start and extract some very important files from my iMac.

My iMac, running Snow Leopard, gets hung up on the Apple gray logo screen with the spinning circle.

Today, I managed to get onto my Windows partition by holding Option and then choosing Windows. I managed to successfully save some really important baby pictures onto an external hard drive after entering the Windows side of things. Now though, each time I try to get on Windows and click on a folder with the photos I want to pack up, the folders start freezing and saying "Not Responding"

As you could guess, I am devastated about this. At this point I have thankfully saved many many pictures of my baby, but there is still more I need (not to mention Photoshop files, documents, etc etc). I have learned my lesson to back everything up.

Does anyone have any clue what I can or should do from here on out? Any help to get me to where I need to be would mean the world to me! Thank you

 

[matreya]

I would suggest you buy a firewire-capable external hard drive:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MS8U3H7500GB/

Get out your Snow Leopard install discs and install OS X onto the new external hard drive and boot up from it, and try to copy over what files you can.... clearly your hard drive is failing on the portion where OS X resides...

 

[JajoPGH]

I would suggest you buy a firewire-capable external hard drive:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MS8U3H7500GB/

Get out your Snow Leopard install discs and install OS X onto the new external hard drive and boot up from it, and try to copy over what files you can.... clearly your hard drive is failing on the portion where OS X resides...

Thanks so much for the advice. Is it possible to use a USB external hard drive? Those are more available in local stores, and I want to get this resolved as soon as I can.

Also, because those folders are not responding, does that suggest that the files are corrupt and no longer salvageable?

Thanks again

 

[matreya]

Thanks so much for the advice. Is it possible to use a USB external hard drive? Those are more available in local stores, and I want to get this resolved as soon as I can.

Yes, you can use a USB drive, but it will be quite a good deal slower, but doable.

Also, because those folders are not responding, does that suggest that the files are corrupt and no longer salvageable?

It's likely but not absolutely certain. You could try booting the Snow Leopard installer disc, running Disk Utility and repairing the hard drive... but I would still get the external hard drive sorted.

 

[JajoPGH]

Yes, you can use a USB drive, but it will be quite a good deal slower, but doable.



It's likely but not absolutely certain. You could try booting the Snow Leopard installer disc, running Disk Utility and repairing the hard drive... but I would still get the external hard drive sorted.

I'll definitely give the hard drive a shot very soon, thank you. Before I do that, should I not even bother going into the computer? I don't want to do anymore harm.

I have tried repairing the hard disk through Disk Utility. It recognizes that there is a hard drive there, but both the Mac HD partition and Windows partition are grayed out. When I click either, I get the spinning rainbow wheel

 

[matreya]

I'll definitely give the hard drive a shot very soon, thank you. Before I do that, should I not even bother going into the computer? I don't want to do anymore harm.

The only reason you would open up your iMac in this instance is if the drive is defective and interferes with the operation of the Mac...

I have tried repairing the hard disk through Disk Utility. It recognizes that there is a hard drive there, but both the Mac HD partition and Windows partition are grayed out. When I click either, I get the spinning rainbow wheel

That doesn't sound good :/