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Weird issue with iMac

G

GaresTaylan

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 11, 2009
870
30
Hey everyone. We have a 2009 iMac in our company that needs reimaged. The end users have installed/uninstalled/reinstalled so much random garbage that they all have issues under their user profiles with software crashes, etc.

Today I was going to reinstall 10.6.8. When trying to boot off the install disc, it hangs at the Apple logo. I tested this same disc on an older 2008 iMac and it worked fine. Regardless, I burned another disc, tried that one, and the same thing happens.

So to sidestep the possibility that the optical drive is going out I created a bootable USB drive with 10.6.8 on it. Again, tested working fine on the older iMac. Same result - the Mac hangs at the Apple logo. Ive left it there as long as 40 minutes.

I verified the disk in disk utility and it said it was ok. For giggles, I tried to boot into single user mode to try and do a repair there. When I do that, it never gets to the point where I can type in a command. About halfway through loading all of the "DOS-like" lines, it freezes. The Mac itself will still boot into OSX and the users can work, however.

Does this sounds like a system board issue?
 
Which iMac, if it is a later 2009 model the minimum OS is 10.6.1 for instance, if the disk you have is 10.6 it can NOT boot from it, so first check which model it is.

Edit: Both the late 2009 iMacs need 10.6.1
 
justperry said:
Which iMac, if it is a later 2009 model the minimum OS is 10.6.1 for instance, if the disk you have is 10.6 it can NOT boot from it, so first check which model it is.

Edit: Both the late 2009 iMacs need 10.6.1
Click to expand...

It is late 2009. The installer I have is 10.6.3. There are 2 more iMacs of the same model at this location. I decided to test the disc on one of those to see if it would boot. They launch into the OSX setup just fine.
 
GaresTaylan said:
No change. I created another new bootable DVD and USB drive this morning to test with again. Still hangs at the Apple logo.
Click to expand...

I wish you could boot verbose to see what is going on, the problem is that you can't Hold C at startup from DVD and hold Command-V, it also does not work if you Hold the Option key, choose the DVD and then hold the Command-V combination.
I know you can log into Single User Mode and enter some command there but I know only half of them.
But, if you can still boot into OS X you can turn on verbose mode, then restart and boot from the DVD, it will then show the cause of the stall.
 
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