iMac stuck on login setup screen.

[Retracker]

Hello apple community,

I have this iMac model number A1224 that wont go past the login screen. I type my password correctly because I tried typing an incorrect password and it says incorrect. Once I hit login it goes to a blue screen for a few seconds and then gets back to the login screen and it asks again for the password. I have tried starting the iMac on safe mode but the same thing also happens on safe mode. Below I have attached a video of the iMac's issue and a picture of the iMac's information. I dont really care if it doesn't work I am mostly worried about the hard drive as there is a lot of old pictures in this iMac and I hope to recover it... If anyone can help me I would very appreciate it!!! Thank you all for your time and have a nice day.



Best regards,

The link for the video:

10 second video of the iMac's issue

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

What operating system is this old bird (2007) running?

Do you have the system install disc/s? If so try booting asd erasing the hard drive and doing a clean install after doing a backup of course to an external hard drive.

 

[DeltaMac]

If this is still the same Mac (and same problem) that you asked about last month, then you are still running (trying to run!) Leopard.
So, too old to have a recovery system, and the iMac is also too old to have the option of internet recovery. So, the only choice that you have is to boot to an external drive that either has a full bootable system, or an external drive with a bootable OS X installer (which you could use to try to "fix" the drive with Disk Utility/First Aid.
But, if you do have an external bootable installer, then one possible help will be to simply reinstall OS X. That won't erase your hard drive (unless you choose to erase the drive first), and just installs a new set of system files --- and might get your iMac bootable again.

If you still have the original installer DVD (and it is Leopard (OS X 10.5.x), not the older Tiger system (OS X 10.4.x), then that would be a good choice to try the re-install of the system. Leopard installer will force you to do an "archive and install" option, which is exactly what you need to do.