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trellaine

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 24, 2009
154
19
West Coast
A few days ago my mac wouldnt boot up. It is stuck at the grey screen with apple logo and spinning gear. I tried booting up in safe mode ala shift key but that doesnt seem to work.

The Mac is probably 3-4yrs old. Just a guess. So its been through a bunch of updates. And it currently has mountain lion os.

I will try booting up in safe mode again.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks

Ps. When i try rebooting in safe mode the progress bar goes about 25%and then switches to grey screen with apple logo and spinning gear.
 
Last edited:

Raima

macrumors 6502
Jan 21, 2010
400
11
Hopefully it's just a hard drive failure in which you should be able to DIY replace the drive. Hope you've got backups

Anything else and you may need to replace the logic board, which you may be better off getting a replacement mac.
 

trellaine

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 24, 2009
154
19
West Coast
I never heard any hdd noise etc. very strange. I tried D upon startup to being up diagnostics. No luck.

What is verbose mode?

Thanks eveyone.

Luckily i have another imac i can use. Only a year old i think.

----------

I entered verbose mode. I saw a whack of white text. But its stopped?

Just text appears now. Doesnt appear to be any more progress than now.

What next? Thanks

----------

Boot in verbose mode, and see if a disk check could help.

Last line of text says, "appleahcdisquequeuemanager: setpowerstate. And later says timed out after 100907 ms

Thanks
 

trellaine

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 24, 2009
154
19
West Coast
Follow up, hoping someone can interpret my findings.
I made a mtn lion thumb drive.

I booted up the mac. Option to install mtn lion overtop. It wouldnt let me.

Checked disks with disk utility. Received errors trying to repair the disk.

Verifying partition map, checking pre requisites. Problems found in partition map which may prevent booting (my issue)

During repair process of my hd the following error, disk utility cant repair this, restore your backed up files. As well this message, reformat the disk, restore backed up files

Am I hooped? Or any reason i would get these errors?

My mac is 4yrs old. Sounds like i have to lose all current info on hd?

Thanks for reading.
 

trellaine

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 24, 2009
154
19
West Coast
Sigh, i completed the verify disk and repair disk. Everything is fine apparently yet all those error messages the first time i ran the checks.

Ugh:confused:
 

trellaine

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 24, 2009
154
19
West Coast
specs on imac and SSD? Fusion/Hybrid?

Its been awhile but to someone who was asking the model etc of my imac. I am looking for a compatible SSD or fusion/hybrid.

My imac model is 20" mid 2007, MA877LL
2.4Ghz
4mb shared L2 Cache
up to 4gb RAM 667mhz ddr2


I found a compatible SSD from Crucial part #CT3932392 but it does its compaitble and works BUT "no mounting solution".

Anyone have experience or give me a suggestion to have this put in my imac? I am going to have this done or hope to this week.
 
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