iMac Won't Boot

[southerndoc]

This morning I awakened my computer from sleep to see a notice that Time Machine needed to redo the backup for my iMac (2012 edition). I told it to start a new backup.

Safari crashed as I was surfing the web (which it's done for the past few days), and I went to repair permissions. For some reason I clicked verify disk, which advised me of errors. So I stopped the TM backup and rebooted the computer to repair the disk.

I was told the disk was unrepairable and to reinstall OS X after reformatting the SSD (768 SSD). Now the computer won't boot at all. It shows a progress bar at the bottom of the screen but the computer turns off when it gets halfway.

I've reset the VRAM, SMC, tried booting into safe mode, etc. to no avail. I looked on my NAS with my laptop to find that the TM backup is only partial. So therefore I'm screwed unless I dig out the previous Time Capsule and backup from that.

Any suggestions to help fix this before I have to reinstall OS X with a USB flash drive? Should I look into getting the SSD repaired before doing this?

This is not a great start to my Sunday morning!!

 

[southerndoc]

Fixed it with DiskWarrior. Best $99 ever spent (plus the $40 for the Thunderbolt cable to run DiskWarrior from my MacBook Air with my iMac in target disk mode).

 

[southerndoc]

That didn't last long. Now have a hardware failure... only had it for 18 months. Lovely.

To the Genius Bar I go tomorrow.

 

[southerndoc]

So I went to the Genius Bar and they said the SSD is fine. They restored everything and said I was good to go.

Got home, did a Time Machine restore, and the same problem reoccurred. Deleted everything and tried to reinstall Mac OS X as a clean install. No luck.

Did Apple's hardware diagnostics and it says I have a memory fail.

Now I'm trying to decide whether to waste another 2 hours of drive time to go to the Genius to replace one individual faulty memory module or just order 32GB worth from Crucial.

 

[rei101]

I am just exactly in the same situation. Mine is a 2010 iMac. Started to give me problems like a month ago and now is not working. I bought discwarrior last night and ran it from my mac book pro but nothing.

Now I am copying everything with target disc mode from the iMac and I assume I would have to re format the drive and re install everything. But before doing more experiments I am transferring to an external drive all the data I can.

This crash happened after an update with Mavericks, after that everything started to run soooo slow like if spotlight was searching for things all the time.

 

[southerndoc]

Mine also crashed after updating to 10.9.3.

Have you done a memory scan? Hold down option-D while booting up and it should give you an option to test memory (do the extended/thorough scan).

 

[SaSaSushi]

Now I'm trying to decide whether to waste another 2 hours of drive time to go to the Genius to replace one individual faulty memory module or just order 32GB worth from Crucial.

Assuming it is a memory module gone bad, you could just remove one DIMM at at a time until you've narrowed down which one it is and then either replace that module or just run with 24GB.

It seems a waste to replace all four modules if only one's bad.

 

[southerndoc]

Assuming it is a memory module gone bad, you could just remove one DIMM at at a time until you've narrowed down which one it is and then either replace that module or just run with 24GB.

It seems a waste to replace all four modules if only one's bad.

Unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of time to do what you suggested. It's easier to just replace it. Plus who knows if there are subtle differences in memory manufacturing that would create hiccups with the system.

Everything is working great now.

 

[SaSaSushi]

Everything is working great now.

Well, if you have the means, you certainly can't go bad with the full replacement.

Something I forgot to ask was what RAM you were using when it went bad.

One of the many reasons I use Crucial is their lifetime warranty. If a module goes bad, which is rare enough, RMA it and they'll replace it.

 

[southerndoc]

Well, if you have the means, you certainly can't go bad with the full replacement.

Something I forgot to ask was what RAM you were using when it went bad.

One of the many reasons I use Crucial is their lifetime warranty. If a module goes bad, which is rare enough, RMA it and they'll replace it.

It was installed by Apple when I ordered my iMac. I looked at the name on the chip and it was in script.