Please help me understand and possibly learn

[pastimage]

Years ago I left window for apple products. If something broke on a windows I fixed it or went to a forum that helped others through their issues. I knew what to do. Now I have a new issue. This issue pertains to a mac causing me major troubles and I have no clue what to do or where to go. Not to mention I don't fully understand the iOS on a computer. Please help or point me into a good direction. Mods, if this is in a wrong place forgive me, don't penalize me, help me learn.

The mac is a 2008 iMac that has el captain on it with 3 gig ram. I was told the HD was replaced with a newer one and the old one was not big so a 500 gig was put in. I hope to attach an image in this so you can see what I saw and tell me if it is normal or not. What I think is no it isn't normal, but what do I know.

The computer will be used used by wife and children. for education and simple browsing. They use chrome. When I get the computer to turn on I get an apple logo with a status bar, horizontal, showing it is loading or something. Takes a while. I cannot hold down D and turn on for diagnostics. The spinning wheel of doom pops up very often and chrome will freeze often. Finder and search as well as dock froze. have to turn off sometime with power button.

Have questions? I will answer them the best I can. Please and thank you for any and all help.

 

[JohnDS]

Boot into recovery mode by booting while holding down Command-R.
Click on Disk Utility.
Click on Samsung HD
Click on First Aid
When that is done, assuming it shows no problems that it hasn't repaired, then:
Click on MacIntosh HD
Click on First Aid
Let us know if it shows that everything is good.

 

[pastimage]

I did do that last night. As you can see in the image, I clicked the second name under the arrow, so mac HD and osx base, both came back green check in no time.
After I posted this I got an update to the osx so I dl it and told it to restart. I am still in restart mode. little over half done. seems stalled. Have to leave for about an hour. when I get bak if It isn't done shall I just turn off and on and re do as you stated? Thanks.

EDIT**
FWIW it has been over an hour and the computer seems to be in the exact same spot. I am going to voce quit and do the check you requested me to do as I have heard nothing more.

 

[pastimage]

Went and rebooted into disk utility via command R. Ran first aid on all of them and they all came back with a green check and stated operation successful. Next?

 

[JohnDS]

Will it start if you do a safe boot by holding down the shift key?

 

[pastimage]

well, Im holding for about close to an hour now and I still am not in safe mode. The progress bar shows done but I can't seem to get past the grey apple logo and progress bar part. as quick as I can I will post an edit here.

Also, Just as a mention fwiw, the "progress indicator" under the grey logo always seems to get just a hair past the apple and this is where it seems to hang the longest. This is where it was hung when I for shut it down on the install of the latest osx El Cap version mentioned above.

 

[simonsi]

Sounds like you have just bought it, so return it - no need to get frustrated, the seller needs to resolve this. 3GB is a pretty marginal RAM amount and Chrome uses resources poorly which may, together be related.

 

[pastimage]

@simonsi Are you saying there is no fix? I would like to make things work with this computer but if Im out I guess Im out.

Perhaps a reinstall of the OS? Would a new sad HD be worth a look? What COULD my options be?

 

[bent christian]

Apple sells most new Macs with 8GB of RAM for a reason. OSX has become a very bloated operating system, using 2.5GB-3GB just idling. Having a web borrow open can get me to 3GB or 3.5GB easily. Up the RAM with as much as you can and install an internal solid sate drive if it is possible.

 

[Weaselboy]

@simonsi Are you saying there is no fix? I would like to make things work with this computer but if Im out I guess Im out.

Perhaps a reinstall of the OS? Would a new sad HD be worth a look? What COULD my options be?

I'm a little confused. Are you saying it was working fine, then you tried to install El Capitan and it got stuck half through the install, and has been a mess ever since?

What you are describing so far here sounds like a bad drive.

While it is true, adding more RAM would speed things up.... that is not your problem here. Even with only the 3GB you have, it would still boot and run.

If you are up for the work, I would try a drive replacement.

 

[pastimage]

I am thinking that is the case too, drive replacement.
The long and short---- I almost bought a widows brand new for about 450 clocked and running well. I wanted it for 400. I was being cheap. I bought this iMac for 115.00 Had el cap on it. Got it home have had trouble from day 2 or 3. All I ever did was download chrome and about 5,00 pics from my cloud. That is it!!!

As I understand the guy that sold it to me had a 250 gig in it and changed that to a 500 gig SATA drive. I thought he did an sad and I was wrong. as this is a 2008 computer I thought i could only go to like 4 gig of ram anyways.

I am supposed to meet him at 630 in the am tomorrow and give it to him to see what the deal is. bottom line is he will wipe it and reinstall so I figure I can do that. Right?

Disk util and wipe all install my old snow leopard? Thoughts??? Please speak now...

 

[Weaselboy]

Disk util and wipe all install my old snow leopard? Thoughts???

I really doubt that would fix anything.

 

[fischersd]

@Weaselboy - well, you never know....maybe he has some config issues - some apps that are auto-starting and eating up some much needed memory. Yes, 3GB with El Capitan is quite light.

@pastimage - you should be able to find your specific iMac here and get a better idea of which one it is and what the limitations are http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/index-imac.html

If you do decide to keep it, bumping up the memory to 8GB or 16GB (depending on what you're planning on using it for) would be good. SSD's (solid state disks) will make any system faster. ifixit has some good tutorials on doing this yourself (If you're comfortable doing this type of work).
https://www.ifixit.com/Search?query=imac+ssd+install

Btw - that screen capture you posted? Umm...you DO realize that is a disk image you have mounted there, right? (a DMG is like an ISO image) It's a disk image that you have mounted - that's NOT your boot drive / partition.

 

[Weaselboy]

@Weaselboy - well, you never know....maybe he has some config issues - some apps that are auto-starting and eating up some much needed memory. Yes, 3GB with El Capitan is quite light.

Nope... OP tried a safe mode boot that would stop all login/launch items and that did not work, so that is not the issue.

 

[fischersd]

Nope... OP tried a safe mode boot that would stop all login/launch items and that did not work, so that is not the issue.

He could have some corrupt OS binaries in his install that are halting the boot in safe mode. (true, could also be bad blocks on the disk causing those corrupt binaries - but Disk Utility should have found any bad blocks, no?)

 

[pastimage]

Yes, I ran disk until and erased what I could. I see no reason why apple forced me to keep parts of El capitan on the hd. That bothers me. Seems like apple is pushing their computers to become more obsolete junk faster so we ave to buy new ones more often, but that is my opinion. Wait, what was my point? Sry I got off topic

Wiped clean, did reinstall of osx EC and was able to boot into safe mode. Still cannot get into diagnostics from start up. I hold down d from start up till I see apple and progress bar and let go. Got into safe mode by not letting go of the shift key through start up.

I cannot say that it helped as I am not putting anything on it this time. I told the guy that sold it to me to give me money back and Ild give him the computer. He claims I messed it up. No idea what will happen.

SO, if I am stuck with this does anyone know what HD I can put in that will work? How do I know the most RAM I can go to? I understand most of the 2008 can only do 4 gig, if I change HDD orSSD can I go to more or is it a logic board thing? Think this is a mid 2009! yeah!!!

Can I take my 115 investment and make a good computer for up to another 150-200?
[doublepost=1469286325][/doublepost]QUOTE: @pastimage - you should be able to find your specific iMac here and get a better idea of which one it is and what the limitations are http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/index-imac.html

If you do decide to keep it, bumping up the memory to 8GB or 16GB (depending on what you're planning on using it for) would be good. SSD's (solid state disks) will make any system faster. ifixit has some good tutorials on doing this yourself (If you're comfortable doing this type of work).
https://www.ifixit.com/Search?query=imac+ssd+install

Btw - that screen capture you posted? Umm...you DO realize that is a disk image you have mounted there, right? (a DMG is like an ISO image) It's a disk image that you have mounted - that's NOT your boot drive / partition. :QUOTE


Just saw this. Thanks for this info. I had to be typing when this was posted.
[doublepost=1469288636][/doublepost]@fischersd you said "Btw - that screen capture you posted? Umm...you DO realize that is a disk image you have mounted there, right? (a DMG is like an ISO image) It's a disk image that you have mounted - that's NOT your boot drive / partition."

No I did not really know that. I really don't know what I am looking at but I do know it doesn't seem normal. Can you please better explain what I am looking at? That is partly why I loaded it was for confirmation that something was amiss. Thanks for catching it and helping.

@All Thank you for helping me learn nd understand what I am dealing with. I feel I can make a decent computer out of this if I just have some proper guidance. At least I want to learn.