All Mac OS discs freeze at boot, but windows doesn't

palmerrulzah · Mar 3, 2012

Hey guys,

Long time reader, first time poster.

My mum recently broke her imac, it's the 24 inch aluminium one from 2008/2007 I'm pretty sure. She sent it in to the Mac store to get it repaired but they couldn't fix it, so they sent the computer back to us with the hdd outside of the case.

I opened up the computer and put the hdd back in, the computer was still freezing on the booting apple spinning wheel symbol. So i tried a few things like resetting the PRAM etc etc then i swapped the ram slots and tried again. That didn't work so i tried booting from the mac os x disc, that still didn't work. I then proceeded to insert a Windows 7 Ultimate 32x disc. Success, the computer successfully booted from the WINDOWS install disc and within 20 minutes i had windows 7 running on the imac.

The imac has an nvidia 8800 GPU and the windows OS wasn't recognising the driver software for it. So everything such as movies, explorer windows and games were extremely choppy. I researched it and i found out that people who installed windows via bootcamp or as a single OS option oin the same model imac i have, have the exact graphics card issues, even inserting the Mac OS Snow Leopard OS disk and installing the bootcamp software didn't help fix my problem. So then i turned off the computer in a fiery rage.

Around 10 minutes later, i switched the imac back on, not remembering that i left the Snow Leopard disc inside the computer's disc drive. Strangely enough it successfully booted from the SL cd and i was able to successfully wipe the windows OS and install Snow Leopard onto the computer.

The next day i decided to install boot camp with windows 7 to see if the GPU problem had fixed itself if running in boot camp mode instead of using Windows as the single OS. The problem had not fixed itself. So I turned off the iMac and tried to boot into Snow Leopard so i could wipe the boot camp partition. For some reason i couldn't boot into Snow Leopard. I researched and tried many different ways to find boot problems, but none of them would work. I could not boot into Snow Leopard. I then proceeded to boot from the windows 7 install disc and completely wipe the hdd into a fresh start. I then tried to boot into Snow Leopard from the installation disc. It did not work. I then decided to take more drastic measures and inserted a different hdd into the computer via the SATA connection. Then i tried to boot from the Snow Leopard disc. Very strangely, the computer did not boot from it. It did the same thing as i did with the other hdd, freezes during the boot spinning wheel with the apple logo above it and shows the multi language grey screen that says "You need to restart your computer hold down the power button until it turns off then press the power button again."

This is very strange so im sure that its not an hdd error because the Mac OS Leopard Installation cd didn't boot properly even with the new hdd i put in there.
I have tried everything i can, this is a last resort.

Help will be greatly appreciated.

Stretch · Mar 4, 2012

What did the Apple Store say was wrong with it? The invoice should have an issue section on it and they'll tell you what is wrong with the computer.

palmerrulzah · Mar 4, 2012

Stretch said:
What did the Apple Store say was wrong with it? The invoice should have an issue section on it and they'll tell you what is wrong with the computer.

I don't have the computer invoice.
From what i've said can you diagnose anything?

palmerrulzah · Mar 4, 2012

bump
need help please

dobby · Mar 4, 2012

A windows dvd is not a double layer dvd , while the snow Leopard dvd is a double layer dvd .
So the Snow Leopard disk ask more laser power from you're optical drive .
Clean up you're optical drive using compressed air and see if it can read you're
OS X dvd

palmerrulzah · Mar 4, 2012

GREAT IDEA, i'm trying that right now

palmerrulzah · Mar 4, 2012

When im in the Windows OS, windows can acually read the dual layer Snow Leopard dvd. The computer just cant read it when it is set to boot from cd rom drive.
I used a lens cleaner cd, i dont have any compressed air. Still no prevail..
Any other suggestions?

palmerrulzah · Mar 4, 2012

Quick update,

I just took apart the optical drive and cleaned the lens manually.

I'm still getting the same You need to restart your computer hold down the power button until it turns off then press the power button again. multilanguage message.

cwa107 · Mar 4, 2012

Please run the Apple Hardware Test:

Intel-based Macs: Using Apple Hardware Test

...and report back with what (if anything) it finds.

palmerrulzah · Mar 4, 2012

cwa107 said:
Please run the Apple Hardware Test:

Intel-based Macs: Using Apple Hardware Test

...and report back with what (if anything) it finds.

Just to clarify i do currently have Windows 7 Ultimate installed onto the hdd.
I have the iMac plugged into an ethernet connection. I booted while holding D but it went straight to the windows loading screen.

palmerrulzah · Mar 4, 2012

cwa107 said:
Please run the Apple Hardware Test:

Intel-based Macs: Using Apple Hardware Test

...and report back with what (if anything) it finds.

Just to clarify i do currently have Windows 7 Ultimate installed onto the hdd.
I have the iMac plugged into an ethernet connection. I booted while holding D but it went straight to the windows loading screen.

Is the hardware test program stored in the bios?

cwa107 · Mar 4, 2012

palmerrulzah said:
Just to clarify i do currently have Windows 7 Ultimate installed onto the hdd.
I have the iMac plugged into an ethernet connection. I booted while holding D but it went straight to the windows loading screen.

Is the hardware test program stored in the bios?

It depends on the vintage of the machine. You may need to pop your original System Disc 1 into the optical drive.

Also, timing is key when you hit keys at startup. You generally want to wait for the screen to turn grey right after turning it on, then press and hold the key until the expected result appears. Releasing it too soon, or hold it too early can have unexpected results.

If you can't get it to boot into the AHT, at least run Memtestx86 on it - you can download a copy here (there is no need to buy anything - they offer a bootable disc image that you can write to a CD from Windows 7):

Memtest86.com - Memory Diagnostic

It will run on any x86 machine - so ignore the Linux/Windows references.

palmerrulzah · Mar 4, 2012

cwa107 said:
It depends on the vintage of the machine. You may need to pop your original System Disc 1 into the optical drive.

Also, timing is key when you hit keys at startup. You generally want to wait for the screen to turn grey right after turning it on, then press and hold the key until the expected result appears. Releasing it too soon, or hold it too early can have unexpected results.

If you can't get it to boot into the AHT, at least run Memtestx86 on it - you can download a copy here (there is no need to buy anything - they offer a bootable disc image that you can write to a CD from Windows 7):

Memtest86.com - Memory Diagnostic

It will run on any x86 machine - so ignore the Linux/Windows references.

Running Memtest 86 right now, will post back with results ASAP.
P.S.
That was a bloody nightmare trying to find a blank CD-R. lol

palmerrulzah · Mar 4, 2012

Hey just a quick update,

I have been running Memtestx86 for: 8 hours and 22 minutes.

I'm not very sure as to what i should be reading about it, but it is doing the random number sequence.
It says

Iterations: 24
Pass: 3
Errors: 191293424 and it is going up constantly by 1000's.
Test_Sel: Std

Do you know what this means?

cwa107 · Mar 4, 2012

You can stop the test now. I'd replace those memory modules, that sounds like your problem.

palmerrulzah · Mar 4, 2012

I already tried using ram from another computer, it still does exactly the same thing.

cwa107 · Mar 4, 2012

palmerrulzah said:
I already tried using ram from another computer, it still does exactly the same thing.

Are you certain the memory modules you're popping in from other computers actually match up spec-wise with what is required by the Mac?

All memory is not created equally - just because it fits, doesn't mean it will work properly.

palmerrulzah · Mar 4, 2012

cwa107 said:
Are you certain the memory modules you're popping in from other computers actually match up spec-wise with what is required by the Mac?

All memory is not created equally - just because it fits, doesn't mean it will work properly.

Well the computer booted into Windows 7 with the other ram inside it.

cwa107 · Mar 4, 2012

palmerrulzah said:
Well the computer booted into Windows 7 with the other ram inside it.

Memory can be funny - and different OSes handle and map memory in different ways. Memtestx86 is pretty comprehensive - and with that number of errors, I think it's pretty obvious what the issue is here.

palmerrulzah · Mar 4, 2012

cwa107 said:
Memory can be funny - and different OSes handle and map memory in different ways. Memtestx86 is pretty comprehensive - and with that number of errors, I think it's pretty obvious what the issue is here.

Hmm, okay i think you may be onto something there.

Do you have any idea what could have possibly damaged the RAM?
I have removed it and replaced it an extensive amount of times so is it possible that there is any damage has occured to the actual ram slots?