Hi all. Hoping some with more knowledge than me can help to answer this!
My parents have a late 2008 iMac running (just about!) El Capitan. Yesterday I got a call saying it had died. It was all working fine and then out of nowhere when turning it on it just wouldn't boot. Eventually a flashing ? appears on the screen and it goes no further. A quick google told me to try holding down CMD and R at startup to try and boot into a disk utility screen but having tried this countless times still nothing. Will only load up to the point of the flashing ? and go no further.
Fortunately I had an external drive plugged into it some years ago with time machine set up on it so whatever's happened their data should be safe. But after 8 years of service is the iMac finally dead or is there something that can be tried to rescue it?!
If it's come to the end of the road I guess a new (or likely refurbed) iMac will be their only option and I'll have to figure out how I get all of their data and files back onto the new machine via the back up drive with the time machine back up.
Many thanks in advance and hope to hear some clarification on what may have happened!
Thanks!
Dan
My parents have a late 2008 iMac running (just about!) El Capitan. Yesterday I got a call saying it had died. It was all working fine and then out of nowhere when turning it on it just wouldn't boot. Eventually a flashing ? appears on the screen and it goes no further. A quick google told me to try holding down CMD and R at startup to try and boot into a disk utility screen but having tried this countless times still nothing. Will only load up to the point of the flashing ? and go no further.
Fortunately I had an external drive plugged into it some years ago with time machine set up on it so whatever's happened their data should be safe. But after 8 years of service is the iMac finally dead or is there something that can be tried to rescue it?!
If it's come to the end of the road I guess a new (or likely refurbed) iMac will be their only option and I'll have to figure out how I get all of their data and files back onto the new machine via the back up drive with the time machine back up.
Many thanks in advance and hope to hear some clarification on what may have happened!
Thanks!
Dan