iMac Startup Problems

[paul.b.davis]

My 2010 iMac is having a problem.

I was working with some different Linux distros a while back and I had an issue that I resolved with not being able to delete or edit harddrive partitions.

Now, I want to install Lion and I am getting an error about how my HD cannot be used for startup, or something like that. I have looked in to the solution for this, but it seems I need to boot from a Snow Leopard disk so I can use Disk Utility from a CD.

Here is the problem now. I start up and hold the "c" key to boot from disc. The disk starts to spin and the apple logo comes up but after a minute or two the disk stops spinning and my computer just sits there until I hold down the power button to restart.

At first I thought it was my disk (a retail copy of SL) so I acquired an disk image and burnt a new copy. Still has the same problem. It will still boot just fine from any of the Linux CDs I have tried. I have tried resetting the PRAM.

 

[Detrius]

Option-boot the thing and then hold down command-v when you tell it to boot from the CD. This will boot it in verbose mode. From here, you may be able to tell why it's failing to boot from the CDs.

 

[paul.b.davis]

I will try that when I am home tomorrow and report my findings.

 

[paul.b.davis]

When I do that, it stall after the line:

Loading System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/Extensions.mkext...................

Then it just sits there.

Any ideas?

EDIT: I found that file on my computer, but have no idea what to make of it or figure out why it is not loading properly