Keyboard not responding in Single User Mode

[Soho]

My wife's iMac disk is very full ( 50 GB left of 1TB ) and the machine will not boot, just hangs. OS X 10.6 I think. Safe mode also hangs when tried. I can get into Single User Mode, but when there, my USB keyboard does not input into the screen. ( funny as it obviously recognized the keys to get into Single User Mode ) I am left with a prompt :/root# and no way to enter /sbin/fsck -fy

Any input is appreciated

 

[chscag]

Have you tried to boot the iMac with the original install disk? And it would help us if you provided information about which iMac you have - year and model.

 

[Soho]

Well that is the other issue, when I power up the machine with the install disk in the internal CD drive, it spins up and down numerous times and then ejects, so it does even see it to give me the option to select to boot from it if I press the option/alt key down on boot. ( when I do that I jut get the internal HD as an option ) I have put the startup disk in an external USB CD drive and opened it on my MacBook AIR and it reads fine there. However I am going to try to get another startup disk from work and maybe it might be "more readable". I was going to try to research if there is a way to boot from the USB CD reader.

I am not sure of the exact year and model of the iMac, I estimate it is about 4-5 years old.

 

[chscag]

Make sure any install disk you use is the original that came with the machine or is a retail version (works with all Macs), otherwise the disk will not work. Also, you might want to try blowing some compressed air into the optical drive to see if that helps to read the disk. Sometimes with older machines the optical drive laser reader gets dirty or dusty and will not read the disk.

 

[Soho]

Okay thanks, I can try that. As I indicated, the disk reads on another machine, but agreed that the drive could be dusty. Going to take another crack at it tonight, have a different keyboard to try as well as an HP one to try just in case. The keyboard not responding in Single User Mode is blocking me now, although booting off the CD would be helpful.