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JW008

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Hey everyone,

My iMac G4 won't boot up...I turn on the computer and it goes to a gray screen and a clicking sound comes from the computer. EVENTUALLY, after many times of turning it off and then back on I get it to go to a gray screen with the Mac OS symbol (the little double smiley-faced emblem) that switches back and forth with a folder with a question mark on it.

I tried using the start-up discs as well as the Tiger disc to reinstall, but none of them work. A couple of times I made it to the install screen, but the hard drive never appears for me to install this on.

If anyone could help I would be much appreciative...
 
Does starting from the OSX disks always work or just some of the time. This sounds like a pretty classic dead hard drive. 🙁

If it is, the best way to recover your data is to try Target Disk Mode. 🙂
 
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