iMac won't boot up

[martyn05]

My wife's iMac MC508 is 2 weeks old, I had to re-install it after 1 week because Safari kept hanging. It was working ok yesterday lunchtime when I used it but last night my wife switched it on and just got the white screen with logo, then a blank progress bar then the circle thing before it shut itself down. We have tried all the key combinations that we found online but no change. The only thing I have not done is put the install disk back in for fear of not being able to eject it.

Has the hard drive packed up? Does this mean a trip to an Apple store?

Any ideas anyone?

Many thanks in advance.

 

[Hellhammer]

http://guides.macrumors.com/Mac_doesn't_boot

Might be a bad HD

 

[martyn05]

That's what I was thinking

Thank you Hellhammer, that's what I was thinking.

Pretty poor show considering it was only 2 weeks old. We have just made the leap from PC to Mac after having computers for over 15 years, got 2 iMac computers and a mac book pro then this happens.

 

[Hellhammer]

Thank you Hellhammer, that's what I was thinking.

Pretty poor show considering it was only 2 weeks old. We have just made the leap from PC to Mac after having computers for over 15 years, got 2 iMac computers and a mac book pro then this happens.

Well, hard drives usually die within few weeks (manufacturing flaw) or after years of service. Apple uses same HDs as other manufacturers so this might have happened with a PC as well. You are under warranty so just give Apple a call and it will be fixed

 

[martyn05]

Update:

Booked my wife's iMac into the Genius Bar at the Apple Store in Leicester. Took it there today and they could not get it to boot with their firewire drive etc plugged in and reckon the hard drive has packed up.

They gave me 2 options:

1. Take it back to the store I purchased it from and because it is less than 28 days old I am entitled to a replacement or my money back.

2. Apple will replace the hard drive and get it all working (free of charge) but it will take 7 - 10 days but they will try to complete this sooner because it was so new.

I chose option 2.

My reasons for this are; I had installed and activated Adobe Photoshop CS5, Office for Mac 2011 along with other programs. When you activate CS5 it registers the logic board etc against the serial number of the software so if you install it on a new computer it will not allow you to run the software until you de-activate the old computer which I can not do. So when I get the iMac back I should be able to use Time Machine to restore the iMac and because there is no change in logic board etc it should all still work ok.

I will let you all know what happens.....

 

[Hellhammer]

Apple's (and most resellers') return policy is 14 days so the store you bought it from may have given you the instructions to take it to Apple and let them fix it. So good that you chose #2.