OS X Utilities loading wheel

[alonnx1]

Trying to factory reset my iMac i5 21.5 inch, mid 2011. Every time I try to go through the process of holding cmd + R and turning it on, the mouse turns into the wheel of fortune and won't let me select anything. I tried waiting for about an hour and it didn't go away. I attached an image of the problem i'm having.

Any help would be awesome,
Thanks

 

[satcomer]

Consult the Apple Support article What to do if selling or giving away your Mac.

 

[Weaselboy]

Try holding command-option-r to get to Internet recovery. From there erase the disk then reinstall.

This will get you an Internet based utility rather than the internal disk based recovery you are trying to do now.

 

[DeltaMac]

Why are you trying to erase the hard drive?
Are you having problems with the hard drive, and you hope that format and reinstall will help?
Might help - but might just be a failing/failed hard drive, and won't let you access the drive now. That may explain your spinning cursor - and you may save a lot of wasted time by simply replacing the hard drive.

 

[JohnDS]

Sounds like your recovery partition is damaged. Try downloading the OS from the App store and re-install it. That should update the recovery partition. Then try booting into Command-R again.