iMac will not boot.

[WetcoastBob]

My iMac OSX 10.6.8 will not boot.

After power button is pushed It "Chongs", shows apple logo with gearwheel underneath and after 42 seconds the screen goes blue. Every now and again the gearwheel is active for a few seconds then disappears for a few seconds and then reappears for a few seconds.... and that is it!

When the gearwheel is absent I have a mouse cursor which I can move with my magic mouse.

I have tried to boot off the install disk. Same result.

I have done a smc reset, an NVRAM reset to no avail.

It will start up in Targe Disk mode.

Motherboard Kaput?

 

[Schtumple]

Could be a RAM issue, if you've got any spare, try swapping out what you've got in there, or take the 1st one out, if it still does it, take the 2nd out and put the 1st back in.

 

[WetcoastBob]

Solved

Thank you for your prompt reply.

I realized that I had yet to do a safe boot. I did this successfully and the re-booted and all seems well

I really wonder what happened.

Thanks:
Bob

 

[SplicedBanjo]

It doesn't make sense to me that booting from the install disc would be exactly the same problem. Are you absolutely sure you were booting from the disc? Did you hold down the C key? You could also hold down Option and use the Boot Camp selector. I think you can also hold command-option-shift-delete.

 

[Schtumple]

Thank you for your prompt reply.

I realized that I had yet to do a safe boot. I did this successfully and the re-booted and all seems well

I really wonder what happened.

Thanks:
Bob

Fair enough, glad you got it all working again.

 

[WetcoastBob]

@ SplicedBanjo

Dead sure!