Old Mac, gray screen, logo, spinning wheel, help!

[jeditor]

hello all, I’m not sure if I’m in the right place. I have an old Mac, about 10 years old. I don’t know what it runs! I can’t get it to start up and have a very important old project on it. When I turn it on it gives the chime, goes to the gray screen with the logo and a loading wheel. It just stays there for ever. I have tried unplugging, unplugging all external drives (it does have a few internal that are still connected) starting in safe mode and those haven’t worked. I know I’m not helping my situation by not knowing the system stats. Any help would be appreciated! Thank you.

 

[chscag]

It's difficult to try to even guess what the problem might be. See if you can get the serial number off the machine and let us know what it is. We can look it up at the Apple site and get the specs that way. The serial number should be on the bottom plate.

The symptom you stated above might be the sign of a bad hard drive but it could also be other things. You should at least know what type of Mac it is though. iMac, Mac Pro, MacBook Pro, etc.

 

[jeditor]

Thank you, I will look. It’s a desktop, it’s one of those big silver guys with the handles.

 

[ferrarr]

If it is that old, do you have the OS and system discs that came with it? One of them should have a hardware check application on it?

 

[IWT]

And, crucial question; do you have any form of backup? I'm thinking particularly of your "very important old project".

But, of course a full backup would be even better.

Ian

 

[jeditor]

I neither have the disks or a functioning cd tray, it’s an old beast.

 

[jeditor]

Not a full back up, but I have what I need backed up pretty much, it’s just that it is a Final Cut Pro 7 Project and non of my other computers can run that program.