iMac won't start/running very very slow

[itsthetouch]

I have the 20inch intel imac running leopard. Out of nowhere it started going very slow, spinning wheel every other click. Then just freezes. And now I can't start the computer again. It stops at the grey screen with the apple symbol like its loading but never does. I've tried unplugging the whole thing then again got a blinking question mark folder. I just keep getting different things. A blank white screen.

Any simple solutions or easy steps to follow? I don't know much about the computers but if anyone has any advice I would appreciate it.

 

[itsthetouch]

I tried holding down the option key while restarting and when I select to start from the harddrive..it just freezes. I restarted it and started from the install disc.
So i tried to put the install disc in and use the disk utlity and when I went to Verify Disk/Repair Disk or Verify Disk Permissions it would start up then stop and say it had to quit because of an error.

I feel like it's not reading the drives or something, I don't know.

Any help??

 

[Knoodles]

More than likely your Hard Drive is toast and needs to be replaced.

 

[iMouse]

Hard drive, dude. My Mid-2007 iMac 2.4 (iMac7,1) started doing the same thing. Eventually, an attempt to reboot turned it into a paperweight.

I replaced my WD Caviar Blue 320GB with a WD Caviar Black 1TB and never looked back. It may be a little louder, but it isn't loud enough to make up for the performance increase I got out of it.

It isn't too hard to do yourself as long as you can get a hold of two suction cups, a phillips head screw driver and some torx screwdrivers. Careful when lifting the display as there will be a display cable (ribbon) and 4 connectors I assume are for the LCD backlights.

Careful when removing the thermal sensor off the bottom of the hard drive too...you wanna make sure you can re-adhere it to the new drive.

Take a look on iFixit.com for instructions on replacing the drive yourself.

 

[itsthetouch]

Does anyone know where I can find recommendations for a replacement hard drive? I don't need anything with a lot of space just fast performance really.

 

[iMouse]

Does anyone know where I can find recommendations for a replacement hard drive? I don't need anything with a lot of space just fast performance really.

Check Newegg for a WD Caviar Black. They make several storage and cache sizes at different prices. Any of the Caviar Black line drives work great in the iMac.

I'm sure you could also look at Seagate, Samsung or Hitachi, but I'm not really a fan due to constant problems I've had with many of their high-performance drives.

Probably should look at a SATA 3Gb/s drive as the 6Gb/s drives will not offer any additional performance increase since your iMac can only support 3Gb/s at the controller.