I have a 24" imac. I bought it right after leopard came out. My wife called me at work to tell me that the computer was running really slow all day and that it finally froze. She held down the power button on the back and when she turned it back on it went to the white screen and nothing else happened, there isn't even the flashing folder with question mark. It stays on the white screen, doesn't recognize any keyboard entries. I've reset the pram, tried to start from OSX disk, but nothing happens when I hold down "C". Tried holding down shift. I've tried everything. I really don't want to pay someone to fix this, so I'm going to start taking this thing apart if I don't get any more ideas. Please help.........Thank you.
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White Screen of Death!!!
- Thread starter Viantay
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I don't think there's anything you could do by taking it apart, aside from possibly make it worse. Pay someone to fix it.
haha, yeah I'm sure me pulling this thing apart won't help, but at $900 for a new logic board-(GPU doesn't sound cheap either) I'm not sure what to do. I live a few hours from the closet apple store, so I was hoping for some more tips. If I take it in, will they look at it for free and then I can decide if I want to pay for it to be fixed, or is there a diagnostic charge?
The fact that its unresponsive to holding down the C key is quite worrying. If the SMC reset did nothing, try the keyboard in another USB port and try booting from there into the DVD. If that doesn't work, then your problems are probably hardware, I'm afraid.
One other thought. It could be a faulty RAM module. Try removing one RAM card at a time and booting up with only the other one.
One other thought. It could be a faulty RAM module. Try removing one RAM card at a time and booting up with only the other one.
This just happened to my 24 in. iMac last night. I went home at lunch and was able to boot with the disk (it showed the HD and disc image). However, I had to leave before proceeding.
With that done, is there a good chance I will be able to get to the utility and fix or find out what the problem is? All I have seen on here is the posts saying it didn't work.
My apple care doesn't run out until November, so I am covered, but my concern is getting lost data back. Guess I will find out tonight.
With that done, is there a good chance I will be able to get to the utility and fix or find out what the problem is? All I have seen on here is the posts saying it didn't work.
My apple care doesn't run out until November, so I am covered, but my concern is getting lost data back. Guess I will find out tonight.
Why don't you wait until you find out before we start giving you advice? That's the first thing we'd ask anyway. There are any number of things that could cause what you describe.
But yes, it is a good sign if you can get to the boot menu.
But yes, it is a good sign if you can get to the boot menu.
I had this problem, and I was diagnosed with a bad Logic. (After running some Apple diagnostics) (There also was a loud fan)
But, I booted up from the Disk after multiple tries and I Repaired Permissions.
Had problem.
I had this problem once. All I had to do was hold down alt until my Macintosh HD showed up, and then all I did was click it and baddaBang! Fixed. Attempt to try it. I'm pretty sure it was just alt, but it could have been hold down 1 button on the track pad and hold alt...just try both hehe, hope I'm helpful.
I had this problem once. All I had to do was hold down alt until my Macintosh HD showed up, and then all I did was click it and baddaBang! Fixed. Attempt to try it. I'm pretty sure it was just alt, but it could have been hold down 1 button on the track pad and hold alt...just try both hehe, hope I'm helpful.
I had the same thing 2 weeks ago. I have a 2.4 GHz imac, close to the same age as your machine I think. Turned out to be a dead HD. I managed to recover almost all of my stuff with Disk Warrior, but I don't really know what's missing yet. I didn't have a proper backup and paid the price. Now I've signed up here in hope that I'll find a proper backup solution.
I didn't get the flashing question mark folder with each startup attempt on mine either.
I didn't get the flashing question mark folder with each startup attempt on mine either.
I really hope mine is just a bad hard drive. I've tried all the suggestions so far, but none have worked. I'm taking a small road trip to an apple store this next weekend I guess. Hopefully they can tell me something. I'm an idiot for not having a backup, I told my self a million times to pick up a new external drive for time machine. Was disk warrior pretty easy to use, what's the cost, how does it work?
If you're hoping the problem is with the hard drive, you obviously don't care too much about the data on there. It's one of the cheaper fixes, but it's also one of the more costly if you factor in the loss of family photos/documents/whatever. If the problem is not with the drive, you'll be able to recover all of the files on there.
Well, It was the HD. I took it in to an apple store. They wanted to charge me like $350.00 to put in another 320 GB drive. So found a 1TB WD Caviar Black drive for $99.00 and replaced it myself. It was actually not even that hard to do. Mac is out of warranty anyways, so I thought I'd give it a try. I am sad I lost the info on my old drive, any suggestions on how to recover data on a failed drive with a hardware issue?
Well, It was the HD. I took it in to an apple store. They wanted to charge me like $350.00 to put in another 320 GB drive. So found a 1TB WD Caviar Black drive for $99.00 and replaced it myself. It was actually not even that hard to do. Mac is out of warranty anyways, so I thought I'd give it a try. I am sad I lost the info on my old drive, any suggestions on how to recover data on a failed drive with a hardware issue?
I'm not 100% positive, but i think Disk Warrior will help recover files. I have the program but i havent had to use it for that. But i did have a corrupt thumb drive that was unfixable that Disk Warrior somehow mounted so i could get a few files off of it.