imac is dying on me. please help! :(

[shambock]

Hi everyone....need your help! Something is seriously up with my imac and I'm starting to fear the worst. I've been trying to fix it for the past 5 hours but am not getting anywhere.

When I switch it on, I get this screen:

It stays like this for about 2 minutes and then the imac just shuts down.

I tried booting from installation disks to verify, repair disk etc, but that's not working either:

Trying to do a fresh install from scratch, but it's not letting me do that either:

I also tried connecting my imac to my sisters macbook with a firewire and pressing T in order to do a transfer, but the macbook just isn't picking up the imac. Even with migration assistant, nothing.

Is my imac hard drive totally dead? What's going on? Is there anyway I can get the files from my computer? I really don't want to lose them.

any help would be appreciated very much

 

[Mac SK]

Looks like your Hard Drive may be crashed. Sorry...your going to lose your stuff. May make a difference to pull the drive and connect to a firewire or USB adapter and see if theres any files you can save. A more powerfull disk repair app may fix it. Did you choose options and reformat the disk...you will lose every thing if you reformat. Its says catalog file is damaged. Disk Warrior may fix that.

 

[shambock]

Hi thanks for the reply.

Even if I lose my files (which isn't the end of the world) will reformatting it fix the computer at least? or is it a goner?

Will the mac genius bar fix something like this? or do I have to pay for a new drive out of my own pocket? I've made an appointment at a genius bar...i dunno what to do

thanks again

 

[shambock]

Disk Warrior may fix that.

I think i'm gonna try this. It's expensive, but I guess it's worth it if it works. I need it on disk though I suppose, so I can boot up from it.

 

[Mac SK]

I think i'm gonna try this. It's expensive, but I guess it's worth it if it works. I need it on disk though I suppose, so I can boot up from it.

Yes you need the boot version. Is the machine under a service plan. There may be a recall on that drive. Other wise reformating will zero out the drive. Ifs its really crashed it still will not install the OS. You will know for shure. Buy a new drive and replace it. You can take it in and let them run disk repair find out the cost first.

 

[hughvane]

Hang on, don't rush off to the techos - or Disk Warrior - just yet.

Have you tried booting into Safe mode? Hold Shift down immediately after the startup sound. If successful, you can extract a lot of non-OS files from the hard drive and put them on an external drive. Once you've done that, then get busy with Disk Warrior.

If the warranty on your iMac is no longer valid, take the failing hard drive out of the iMac yourself. You can try reformatting it later.

Meantime, it may prove cheaper for you to take your iMac to a technician who has Disk Warrior to use, to try and effect repairs.

 

[Mac SK]

Have you tried booting into Safe mode? Hold Shift down immediately after the startup sound. If successful, you can extract a lot of non-OS files from the hard drive and put them on an external drive.

Meantime, it may prove cheaper for you to take your iMac to a technician who has Disk Warrior to use, to try and effect repairs.

Thank You Hughvane..Safe Mode slipped my mind.

 

[shambock]

Hi all.

Tried SAFE MODE time and time again but it just wasn't working.

I managed to do a fresh install of Leopard. It took about 9 hours to install. Very slow.

Desktop is up and running but is extremely slow. Keeps lagging all the time. Pretty impossible to use.

I purchased Disk Warrior and tried it just now. No luck. This is the message I'm getting:

DiskWarrior has successfully built a new directory for the disk named "MacintoshHD". The new directory cannot replace the original directory because of a disk malfunction"

Really don't know what else to do or try. Gonna have to take it to Genius Bar I suppose.

 

[chas_m]

Yeah, the hard drive is dying.

The good news: the drive is probably under warranty (either Apple or the drive manufacturer), so chances are good you'll get a new one.

More good news: you didn't waste the money on Disk Warrior. You can continue to use it with your new drive and keep it healthy by running DW on it every now and again (like every 3-6 months). It will really help extend the useful life of your Mac!

Let us know how it goes.

PS. Develop a backup strategy in case this ever happens again!