Early 2008 iMac El Capitan doing strange things

[slippyjim]

Hi,
My friend has an Early 2008 iMac with 360GB SSD & El Capitan 10.11.6 doing strange things.
Mail opens then immediately closes, if I hold down shift then click mail, it opens ok and downloads new emails ok but when I click on inbox it closes with the error in the picture (didnt realise it was so rubbish when I took it)

When I run first aid in disk utility it says ".... found corrupt and needs to be repaired" so decided to run disk utility from recovery console but at startup
Command+R does nothing,
Option+Command+R does nothing,
Option only gives me Macintosh HD
Shift takes me to safe mode very slowly then asks for admin password (see below)
so it appears there is no recovery partition

Also Word 2008 opens then displays a message saying the database is corrupt and to run the database utility in the applications/office 2008/Office folder I go to that folder and there is no file called database utility, I dont see any file at all with database in its name

So next plan was to download El Capitan, make a bootable USB and run disk utility from there but he doesnt know the admin password, it has always been set to auto logon and he has no idea about a password

So next plan is to try and find someone else with a mac or create the USB from the dmg file on my Windows PC which if memory serves me correctly is not easy at all....

Is there anything else I can try? Are I going down the right path with disk utility?

Thanks

 

[chscag]

I don't know where to start......

An early 2008 iMac probably came preinstalled with Leopard (macOS 10.5.X) which had no recovery partition. Do you by chance have the original install DVDs? If you do, that would be the best way to start over. That is if the optical drive still works.

If not, it's possible to obtain a copy of Snow Leopard (macOS 10.6.X) on DVD from eBay. Booting with that would allow you to use Disk Utility from the DVD and also get around the password and to actually reset it.

Again, that's if the optical drive is working.

If the SSD drive in that machine is failing or has errors it might not be possible to repair it but will have to be replaced. Not difficult with a 2008 iMac.

As for MS Office 2008, a bad data base almost always means that it will need to be reinstalled. Office 2008 did not require activation by MS so that part is easy IF you have the original CD.

If you do decide to obtain a Snow Leopard DVD, make sure you get the commercial version (for all Macs) and not one specific for any particular Mac. The DVD will be white with a picture of the Snow Leopard on the face of the DVD.

If the optical drive on that machine is not working, you won't be able to boot from an external USB optical drive as the system will "see" the internal drive even if it's not working and refuse to boot from the external. It may be possible to boot from a USB installer flash drive.

Let us know. Hope this helps you somewhat.

 

[pm-r]

My friend has an Early 2008 iMac with 360GB SSD & El Capitan 10.11.6 doing strange things.

Just for the record, I would be surprised If that iMac model actually has a SSD installed unless one was added later.

Most models of that vintage used a Standard Rotary Storage: 320 GB HDD

Apple iMac Specs (All iMac Tech Specs): EveryMac.com

Tech specs for all Apple iMac models from the original to the current. Dates sold, processor type, memory info, hard drive details, prices and more.

everymac.com

But I would doubt that has anything to do with the existing problem unless it was starting to fail or just too full or the file system was almost FUBAR!!!


- Patrick
=======

 

[Rod]

Does your friend have a "full" backup of the device. I ask because in the end the solution may well involve complete erasure and reformatting of the HD.
If it is the original 12 year old HDD it may well require replacement, either way its data will be lost unless a bootable external device can be created with Disk Utility on board.
So yes, you are on the right track. If you can find someone else with a Mac who would be willing to create a bootable El Capitan installer that may enable repair via First Aid but it's a lot of work if the outcome is that the HD requires reformatting due to bad blocks or corruption.
Whatever you decide I would suggest that your friend save what he can of his data first.

 

[slippyjim]

I don't know where to start......

Very very true......

he doesnt have any OSX DVDs

Thats what I thought about the SSD and its such a weird storage capacity as well, I'm sure its an SSD as it started up very quickly considering its age

he has no backup (no surprise there!!) but I have an external HDD we can use, probably the best place to start

Thanks, I will update when I go back later this week

 

[Rod]

Here is my favourite site's full description and specs just fyi. If this is the Penryn revision that may explain the quick startup.

iMac "Core 2 Duo" 2.4 20" (Early 2008) Specs (Early 2008, MB323LL/A, iMac8,1, A1224, 2210): EveryMac.com

Technical specifications for the iMac "Core 2 Duo" 2.4 20" (Early 2008). Dates sold, processor type, memory info, hard drive details, price and more.

everymac.com

 

[MacInWin]

Thats what I thought about the SSD and its such a weird storage capacity as well, I'm sure its an SSD as it started up very quickly considering its age

If it starts, what does it say about the Storage in the About This Mac pane? Click on the  in the upper left corner, then About this Mac and then System Report. Look at the Storage information and it will describe the hardware. I've never heard of an SSD of that size, so I, too, think it's a spinner.

 

[slippyjim]

I will have a look when I go again, but I'm sure it said 360GB SSD and the startup speed seemed way too fast for a 2008 Mac with a hard drive
Ive just googled 360GB SSD and there are a few around

 

[slippyjim]

I had a quick look the other day and it is definitely a 360GB SSD, says its an Intel drive.
Going back on Friday to try el capitan usb boot

 

[slippyjim]

So in the end I managed to create a Boot USB for El Capitan and reset his password and also ran disk utility from the boot USB, and it said everything was ok....
After much messing around and reinstalling of OSX it seems that Mail was crashing whenever i clicked on certain folders. I presume they weren't mapping to the IMAP server folders correctly, I managed to narrow the errors down to just the rubbish bin so I made that a local folder only. It then also created a link to the IMAP bin and whenever I clicked on that it crashed but the local bin is fine

The same email works fine in Mail on his macbook pro running the latest OSX so it seems its a problem with this older version of mail.

All working ok now and hes happy, so alls good
Cheers

 

[slippyjim]

and mail has died again today so thiink we'll be trying a different app now

 

[Rod]

That might be a good idea, one way or another it will tell you something. Personally I use Spark but there are heaps to choose from.

 

[MarkAllread]

Sorry if this is redundant, but have you tried rebuilding the mailbox(s) (easy), or reindexing Mail (harder, backup first)

 

[krs]

FWIW - A few MacBook pros and airs in my family are running El Capitan and Apple Mail without any issues and have for several years.
But accounts are POP not IMAP.

 

[Rod]

I think it was about macOS Mavericks that I gave up on Mail due to issues with IMAP accounts although my wife persisted. She had lots of issues with her gMail IMAP account but we did solve most of them over time. I on the other hand gave up and started using AirMail which never missed a beat. I swapped to Spark when Bloop decided to change to a subscription based business model back in High Sierra.
Really AirMail was starting to suffer from feature bloat anyway whereas Spark works on all my devices and is very reliable.
"Spark for macOS requires Metal. Apple introduced Metal with El Capitan in 2015. It is supported on all Mac hardware from mid 2012."

This is a personal recommendation only and I am not in any way associated or affiliated with Spark or Readdle.