Mac OSX Yosemite upgrade - total system failure

Hello -

I've got a great new iMac 5K - well - it was great until I updated to the 10.10.2 update. Now the system restarts with the "no" symbol. I've tried starting it up in Recovery mode - and while the disk appears, it gives an error that it can't be verified nor can it be repaired.

This is a company computer - unfortunately, we don't have a backup yet because we're in the process of getting backup drives approved. .


I've tethered it to an older mac and it doesn't mount as a drive, unfortunately. It IS recognized as a drive in Disk Warrior, but I have an older version of the software (Disk Warrior 4) and as it is, it can't repair the structure.

I'm thinking that maybe Disk Warrior 5 might be a solution to this? I have an older version of the software (I can't wait two weeks for a usb drive to be mailed, though - so I may have to foot the bill for a full license instead.)

Is there any way to get files off of this thing before I take it in to be looked at?

I've been on the phone with Applecare - but nothing they have suggested seems to be working (mostly their suggestions have centered around Disk Utility in Recovery mode).

Thank you so much,
- J

ittybittyartist said:

I've got a great new iMac 5K - well - it was great until I updated to the 10.10.2 update. Now the system restarts with the "no" symbol. I've tried starting it up in Recovery mode - and while the disk appears, it gives an error that it can't be verified nor can it be repaired.

Click to expand...

I hate to say this…but if you've tried using the Recovery Mode to get things running again…and it has failed…maybe the hard drive or SSD (depending what it has)…has failed. I know on such a new computer this shouldn't happen…but it can happen…just rare.

I know that you mentioned that this is a company computer…so I'm not sure how this effects how it gets repaired. But if it were me…I would be heading to the nearest Apple Store for an examination & repair. Especially if the troubleshooting steps over the phone with Apple haven't worked.

- Nick

Thanks Nick

Thanks Nick - yeah, I'm a little afraid if it's a bad drive. Hoping that they can get at least some of the data off of it.

ittybittyartist said:

Thanks Nick - yeah, I'm a little afraid if it's a bad drive. Hoping that they can get at least some of the data off of it.

Click to expand...

Sorry…I forgot about that. Losing data is not a good thing.

According to this Diskwarrior 4 link:

DiskWarrior 4 Support

You probably have a Diskwarrior 4 disc…but this disk is not able to boot your iMac…and the link says something about a new disk being available at some point…so I don't know if you have this.

The link also mentions that Diskwarrior 4.4 is compatible with Yosemite (the latest Mac OS)…do you have this version? So you shouldn't have to get Disk Warrior 5.

Of course retina iMac's have no internal optical drive…so you would need an external optical drive to boot the computer from the DiskWarrior 4 disk (even if you have the correct/newest disc).

- Nick

Actually, if you tether one mac to another, you can run Disc Warrior on it and copy (I have the iMac tethered to a late 2011 PowerBook which is running Yosemite as well)

My version of DiscWarrior is 4.3 - I'm going to work on getting the upgrade. I'll post what happens when I run it.

ittybittyartist said:

Actually, if you tether one mac to another, you can run Disc Warrior on it and copy (I have the iMac tethered to a late 2011 PowerBook which is running Yosemite as well)

Click to expand...

That's called "Target Disk Mode".

ittybittyartist said:

My version of DiscWarrior is 4.3 - I'm going to work on getting the upgrade. I'll post what happens when I run it.

Click to expand...

Awesome…hopefully this is just some sort of "weird" glitch. Or at least you are able to rescue your files if the storage device in you iMac is having problems.

- Nick