11-14-2011, 12:34 PM

Please could someone advise me on an iMac 27 boot problem.About a month ago I shut down my iMac and went out.5 hrs later I returned and the Mac would not boot,just the grey screen and spinning wheel.I took it to a local repairer who told me the iMac was 7 days out of warranty.he said it needed a new hard drive but when he fitted the new one the Mac would not recognize it.AFter this failed he managed to re-install the os and charged me £400 quid .SInce then the iMac has been much slower in operation and now it will not boot yet again,it will not recognize the os disk when I try to boot from it.I can't get it to start in safe mode either.When I press option on start up the disk is not showing all I get is a picture of a hd and title efi.
Could anyone please shed some light on this bearing in mind I know very little about these machines and am new to forums
Thanks in advance

11-14-2011, 12:40 PM

Originally Posted by Sparksci

Please could someone advise me on an iMac 27 boot problem.About a month ago I shut down my iMac and went out.5 hrs later I returned and the Mac would not boot,just the grey screen and spinning wheel.I took it to a local repairer who told me the iMac was 7 days out of warranty.he said it needed a new hard drive but when he fitted the new one the Mac would not recognize it.AFter this failed he managed to re-install the os and charged me £400 quid .SInce then the iMac has been much slower in operation and now it will not boot yet again,it will not recognize the os disk when I try to boot from it.I can't get it to start in safe mode either.When I press option on start up the disk is not showing all I get is a picture of a hd and title efi.
Could anyone please shed some light on this bearing in mind I know very little about these machines and am new to forums
Thanks in advance

I think it sounds like a bad HDD connection or logic board trouble. Most likely logic board. If you have the original software start the disk up with the "D" key held down and it should check the hardware.

11-14-2011, 12:49 PM

Thanks for reply I will try that now

11-14-2011, 12:57 PM

I have tried hardware test twice and it freezes after 2mins 19 secs on each test and will not respond to any commands.Does this mean the logic board is damaged?

11-14-2011, 02:15 PM

Originally Posted by Sparksci

I have tried hardware test twice and it freezes after 2mins 19 secs on each test and will not respond to any commands.Does this mean the logic board is damaged?

Check and reseat the RAM and try the AHT again. If that doesn't help then a logic board is the probable cause. Look for expanded capacitors.

11-14-2011, 04:23 PM

Thanks again fathertime I have tried these but nothing has worked,I cannot see any expanded capacitors so I will have to send iMac to mainland and have It checked out.

11-14-2011, 05:59 PM

It sounds like the original repair - replacement of the hard drive was not done correctly. The hard drives in the late model iMac 21.5" and 27" machines are proprietary and use special firmware and a special connecting cable. I don't know if your model falls in that category but it sounds like it.

I don't think from reading your description of the problem that it is your logic board that's defective. You really should have an authorized Apple repair center deal with it and I suspect they will charge you again for another hard drive.