Issue After Upgrading my 24" iMac

hey guys new here. You'll have to excuse my ignorance on Macs as I have been a long time PC user due to using them at work but own Macs at home.

I recently was upgrading my 24" iMac to the new OS. During the install my cat was under the desk and hit the power strip so it knocked the power off.

When I tried to restart it, it wouldnt work. So I came on here and read through some threads and was able to boot from the DVD/CD drive and finish the install.

Now when I start the computer I cant log in as the mouse isnt working, I tried using the tab key on the keyboard and nothing happens either. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks!

Sounds like a bad install. Try a reinstall. But first boot the machine with your install DVD and go to Disk Utility (top menu, Utilities, Disk Utility) highlight the hard drive on the left and then select Verify and Repair from the First Aid tab.

Keep running the verify and repair until all errors are cleared (if any). After that's finished, erase the hard drive and format it as HFS+ Journaled GUID, and then proceed with the OS X install.

If you have a Time Machine backup you can select to restore from the backup during the reinstall.

Note that erasing and formatting the hard drive will destroy all data! Make sure you have backed up your data, documents, photos, music, etc. before proceeding with the erase.

Regards.

Thanks for the reply

I dont have a back up of the hard drive

Should I just try running the first aid and then a reinstall?

Anyway to do a back up if I cant even login?

Anyway to do a back up if I cant even login?

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Do you have access to another Mac? If you do and it has a firewire port, you can hook your iMac to it via firewire cable and do a target mode boot. That would allow you to copy the data from your hard drive to the other Mac. Let us know... The other way would be to remove the hard drive and place it in a USB carrier, attach to another Mac, and copy the data. Not recommended since removing the hard drive from an iMac is a moderately difficult task.

Should I just try running the first aid and then a reinstall?

Click to expand...

You can, but do not erase or format the hard drive. When the verify and repair is finished and all errors are corrected, you can proceed to do an archive and install. That will preserve all your old data in a special folder which you can then access after the new install is finished.

Regards.