Mid 2010 IMAC Locked up when upgrading

Hello,
Well not only am i new here, i am also new to MAC ownership club. I Recently acquired a mid 2010 IMAC 21". When i received this machine it was running el Cap. Since i am wanting this machine for Music and recording i needed to upgrade.
i looked at Mac's web page and it said i could run High Sierra. I began the Down load and it got stuck for 10 hours at 32%. Key board was unresponsive as well. so....i Searched the web only to find this to be a common issue. i have since went through all the suggested methods. IE Boot in recovery and perform First aid, Boot in web recovery and attempt to install new OS. now, it will either get stuck at 32% or it will start making 3 beeps while its stuck at 32%. i decided to attempt to just boot from the DVD that was given to me with the machine i believe it is snow leopard. this works up until it ask for the drive to install to. the list is blank. if i boot in recovery mode i can see the drive and the disc listed, so i know it shows up to some extent. There isnt any data that im worried about loosing. any ideas or solution to get this back and running. any ideas i should try in its current state to possible free this machine up. it honestly ran very well and very quick when i received it. if it wasn't for needing to upgrade to run GB or Mainstage i wouldn't have.

Thank you to everyone who can help me out.

G'day and welcome to the forums.

First up where were downloading HS from? Did you go into Recovery and run Disk First Aid over the drive to ensure it was okay before doing the upgrade? Have you upgraded MainStage as there are several warning as about it failing to update and causing crashes? See link.

Also, have you checked the Applications Folder? It is possible the HS download completed and will be there under Install or some such.


https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/mainstage-3/id634159523?mt=12

From the info you have supplied it sounds as though you have done the right things although it's difficult when I cant bo looking over your shoulder.
I hate to say it but it's very possible that the HD was nearly dead and attempting to rewrite it pushed it over the edge. This can happen when a HD is nearing the end of it's life. Life span of an iMac HD being about 5 years although many last longer than that.
Really the only way to check is to try to boot it from another source. You have said you were able to boot from the Snow Leopard DVD so that would seem to indicate the device works.
It seems to me that if the install DVD cannot see the internal drive then it may well be dead. Again the easiest way to check this would be to pop in a new HD or boot it from a different portable source like a bootable installer or bootable clone.
Obviously this means either finding a local tech, a friend who has a bootable clone of their own iMac or taking it to a service center of some sort.

You may be able to pickup a bootable installers on eBay as you will need one anyway. If you are going to replace the HHD I suggest you get an SSD which will really give the device a boost.


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Let us know what you find/decide. We are happy to help with knowledge or advice.


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Thanks to all for the advise. I am home from church and I have read that I could attempt an erase of the drive and reinstall?? Does this sound right? Because this machine was giving to me there is some unknowns I do know the ram is at 12gb so I believe this has been upgraded. I'm curious if the drive has a well. I suppose I can remove the glass and screen and find out. If the drive has already been swapped for an ssd will snow leopard work? I guess what I'm asking is there something different about an ssd that might cause capatibily issues.

Also, according to the system profile under serial ata, I have a OWC mercury electra 6g ssd.

Also, according to the system profile under serial ata, I have a OWC mercury electra 6g ssd.

One more thing. I believe my drive is formatted as APFS. I read that I would need to partition and format to MAC os extended to get snow leopard to work. Does this sound correct? Also, if I do this, can I then just upgrade back up to Sierra or high Sierra??

Someone else will have to chime in on this one. It's starting to sound like you have a Fusion Drive. Meaning a HHD and an SSD. Perhaps you could look up the serial number online and get the original specs.


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No, the OWC drive was not used in any fusion drives that I am aware of. It's an aftermarket product. If it is formatted APFS, then at some time the machine had High Sierra running on it. From the original post, it would appear that the drive was formatted to APFS by the HS installer. So, I think you will have to boot the dvd you have, but instead of installing, get into Disk Utility and repartition the drive to one partition, then format the partition to OSX Extended (journaled) and then run the installation. Snow Leopard doesn't know anything about APFS, so it doesn't see the drive.

Once you get SL installed, you can then install Lion (You will need to purchase the installer from Apple. Go to Apple.com, search for "install Lion" and there will be a link to where you can buy that for US$20) Once you have Lion installed, you will have access to the Mac Apple store online where you can get the HS installer again. Then use DiskmakerX to make a bootable HS installer USB stick, boot from that and install High Sierra. That installation will reformat the SSD to APFS again and then install HS on that newly formatted drive.

Awesome. I at least have direction now. This is far different than a PC in regards to download capabilities that I've ran into. The one thing that has me hooked is how quick this 9 year old machine was. I have a 9 year old PC that is nearly useless. I will attempt the reformat and order the Lion disc and go from there. Thank y'all again for all your assistance.

Jrochester87 before you plunk down that $20, you might want to read this: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202768 The article discusses the three beeps you heard. I'm wondering if there is a RAM issue with your system. And it could also be an EFI issue caused by the attempt to install HS.

I guess what I would recommend is to take the issue one step at a time. First see if Snow Leopard will install and boot. Then order the Lion disk and see if that will install. Then try the upgrade to HS. If at any point in that sequence the three beeps appear, you may have to test the ram. You can read about the Apple Hardware Test here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201257

Ok, I will look into this. I'm not familiar with the term EFI. I've got some more learning to do.

EFI is just the firmware in the computer. It gets updated with some of the upgrades from version to version. It's fairly automatic and safe, but if it goes wrong, it can lead to booting issues. That's why the article I linked to refers to it as a potential cause of the three beeps. But for now, I wouldn't worry about it. See if it will boot the install DVD, you can format the drive for OSX Extended (journaled) and install a version of the OS that will boot. If you can't do that, we'll have to start looking at other approaches.

Good news, after reformat SL see the drive and we have started the install.

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Ok, SL got to about 40 ish percent then a grayish screen popped up and said I needed to restart my machine by holding the power button and then pressing again to turn back on. When I did this, the install SL screen popped and ask me to choose the drive to install to etc. . So I tried again to the same result. Any ideas

That is a Kernel panic. I wish you could capture it and show us. It would be easier to diagnose the issue that way.

Is there a method that I could use to capture what's needed. I really enjoy solving things without a shop. Plus my local mac dealer says they wont touch things older than 2011

When it tells you to restart the computer is that all that is on the screen or is there a listing of codes also?