Late 2011 27" iMac Wont Boot After Freeze

I was casually deleting some emails on my iMac when all of a sudden i get a beachball but it isn't spinning and i can't click on anything. Couldn't type anything either but the mouse would move. So i decided to force shut down because that's the only option I had left. When I went to turn it back on it wouldn't turn on. No start up chime and no fans turning on. When pressing the power button a very quiet noice is heard for a split second sounds like a very light grinding Other that there are no signs of life. Any help is appreciated

-Randy

Welcome to our forums.

The 2011 27" iMac was the subject of a recall several years ago because of the Seagate hard drives used in that model. The drives were problematic and Apple replaced them for free. The beachball and then the freeze was likely the hard drive dying. Although it could certainly be something else - but it does sound like the drive completely died which is why you can't get it to boot.

Do you have an external bootable hard drive that you can test with? If you do, try booting your iMac with it. Otherwise if you have another Mac with firewire or thunderbolt capability, you might try booting with Target mode.

Otherwise it might be time to take your iMac to an Apple store and have them check it out. Replacing a hard drive in that machine is a difficult job and not for someone who has no experience doing that sort of thing. Fortunately, when my 2011 iMac when out on me it was still under Apple care warranty and my local Apple store repaired it for free.