A friend of mine just gave me a bunch of computers that had been donated to him. Unfortunately, none of them are working and I was asked to help fix them. They are all 20 inch iMacs from 2009. EMC 2316. None of them have operating systems on them. When I go to power them on, they make the startup noise, a gray screen comes on, and then the system shuts down. I have attempted to power into Target Disc, Single User, and Safe Mode. I suspect that it is hardware related given that the system shuts down before I can see it looking for the OS but could be incorrect. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
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iMac Wont Power Up
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Many donated computers from reputable organizations have had their Hard Drives removed for security reasons...
I'd check that first...
I'd check that first...
I was able to open everything up and it looks as though the HD is there as well as the RAM. Anything else I should be looking at specifically?
Buy a SL DVD from Apple and see if you can boot from that, the HD's may have been wiped and it's also possible they may have crashed too.
I was informed that the HD's had been wiped but I thought the computer would stay on and just show a blank folder in the center of the screen if it was just the OS not being there. Is there a way to download SL onto a flash drive instead of purchasing the CD and waiting for it to come in?
No, but these iMac can boot on Mavericks, so if you have another Mac, you can go to the App Store, download Mavericks (free), make a bootable flash drive using DiskMakerX (needs Lion minimum).
I'm currently downloading onto a bootable flash drive. However, is it true that a blank screen (the fan seems to be still running) could be indicative of no OS? On another, older, Mac Pro that I have, the monitor displays a folder with a question mark in it.
It doesn't seem like this is a HD issue. I removed the HD, installed Maverick on it, and then tried to start the computer up again. The same problem persisted though I was able to boot from the replaced HD on another computer. It also doesn't seem like a monitor issue because I hooked up another monitor via the Mini DisplayPort output and I saw nothing on that monitor either.