Need help trying to restore my iMac.

[ThisIsMe]

So I installed the Mac os install Dvd and then hit utilities then restart. Once it starts booting up it boots up with a folder and flashing question mark but it does not give me the option to erase the HD. Can anyone please help?

 

[swingerofbirch]

The flashing question mark means the computer can't find a disk with an installation of OS X.

This could be for a lot of reasons (your install wasn't completed correctly, a hard drive issue, a cable to the hard drive not working correctly).

1) What was going on that caused you to re-install OS X?

2) And what OS was on the computer, and what OS did you try installing with the DVD? Since you're posting in the Lion forum, yet you said you used DVDs to do the install, I am curious whether you tried to install Snow Leopard on a computer that shipped with Lion, because that would cause problems. My suspicion stems from the fact that Lion-shipping computers do not ship with restore DVDs to my knowledge, so I am assuming you are installing a pre-Lion OS.

Edit:
And in the event you simply had a corrupted install and just want to erase the drive and aren't worried about losing data, just boot from the Mac OS X Install CD. Hold down the C key as the computer starts and bring up Disk Utilities and you can erase from there. On the other hand, if you have data you want to get back to, you can go to the same place and try verifying and repairing the disk to see if that helps.