Help my iMac is stuck on a gray screen with the apple logo

I have an iMac. I think it has OS Snow Leopard, not sure as I can't get it to come on and load up. It turns on and the screen is gray with the Apple logo. I have tried to do a reinstall on the recovery drive but it tells me that drive is locked. I am soooooo lost. I only really care about the pictures on my computer but if I have to lose them to get it to boot up I dont care.

I dont' have time machine, it asks me about that. I have never used that, ever. I don't have a disc. I bought it from Apple in 2013. I have never had one issue until now.

a reply to: mblahnikluver

I can't show images because ATS hates my laptop....also an Apple. It tells me my photos are not in the right format. I take photos with my iPhone!

How close are you to an Apple store?

originally posted by: Lazarus Short
How close are you to an Apple store?

Not close at all, unfortunately.

originally posted by: Lazarus Short
How close are you to an Apple store?

We have a couple places that work on them but the last person I took my iMac to who said he could take my photos off couldn't do it, tried to keep my iMac and hit on me every time I came in until I threatened to trash all his computers in the store if he didn't give me my computer back...... SO I am a bit uneasy with going to anyone but an Apple store. I may have to just suck it up and make the drive.

Can you remove the battery? If so, remove it and wait about 20 minutes. Reinstall the battery and try to fire it up. If that fails, looks like a road trip to the Apple store.

Good luck...

You cant install the OS on to the recovery drive.

Could be a drive thats died or just the file system has got its panties tied.

You might be able to get a USB 3.0 external drive and install the OS to it and boot off it and see what it says when trying to poke around.

originally posted by: NightFlight
Can you remove the battery? If so, remove it and wait about 20 minutes. Reinstall the battery and try to fire it up. If that fails, looks like a road trip to the Apple store.

Good luck...

It's a desktop, no battery

originally posted by: Maxatoria
You cant install the OS on to the recovery drive.

Could be a drive thats died or just the file system has got its panties tied.

You might be able to get a USB 3.0 external drive and install the OS to it and boot off it and see what it says when trying to poke around.

I wish I could post screen shots of what it shows in disc utility. GRRRR. I can never upload photos to ATS from any of my devices! It tells me it's the wrong format.

I think my HD is f*d. Can I just restore to the very beginning? I don't care if I lose stuff. I've pretty much come to the conclusion I won't see my photos again. most I've saved via other devices or file share sites.

I can't even tell you how annoying it was to get a picture on here.

Anyway this is what it shows in Disk Utility....it tells me the Macintosh HD is not mounted, it won't let me mount it. Says it needs repair yet it says it can't repair.

a reply to: mblahnikluver

Try this and see if you see the hard drive and can startup from it this way:

Start or restart your Mac and immediately press and hold the option key on your keyboard.
Release the option key when you see the Startup Manager window.
Select a startup disk.
Click the arrow or press return on your keyboard.

I'm pretty savvy with Macs and will try to check in today to help you try a few things...

Sorry to hear brother, if I were u I would take it to the apple store, but another option could be to reboot? a reply to: mblahnikluver

a reply to: mblahnikluver

It sounds like your hard drive is toast. Even if you get it going, it will just happen again. If you want any chance of recovering your photos, don't attempt any sort of re-installation.

model of the iMac?
The hard drive looks like its a samsung laptop drive (even though its a desktop computer)
a new replacement drive is not expensive, ad you can keep your data on the old drive for later recovery.
But get the model number..probably on the bottom of the base of the machine.

Unplug it & plug it back in. When restarting hold the Option, Command and power keys/button at the same time & see if that does anything. This is the equivalent of ctrl, alt, delete for Mac's. That's all I can remember from my iMac/Apple days. Hope it helps.

originally posted by: gr8skott
a reply to: mblahnikluver

It sounds like your hard drive is toast. Even if you get it going, it will just happen again. If you want any chance of recovering your photos, don't attempt any sort of re-installation.

That happened to my last computer, also an iMac. I went out and bought a PC and installed Ubuntu on it. Gave the iMac to a friend who had the smarts to install a new hard drive. It now works just fine...for him.

originally posted by: mblahnikluver

originally posted by: Maxatoria
You cant install the OS on to the recovery drive.

Could be a drive thats died or just the file system has got its panties tied.

You might be able to get a USB 3.0 external drive and install the OS to it and boot off it and see what it says when trying to poke around.

I wish I could post screen shots of what it shows in disc utility. GRRRR. I can never upload photos to ATS from any of my devices! It tells me it's the wrong format.

I think my HD is f*d. Can I just restore to the very beginning? I don't care if I lose stuff. I've pretty much come to the conclusion I won't see my photos again. most I've saved via other devices or file share sites.

Then convert them to a format ATS likes. I think .png is one that works - it's awkward but doable.

Sounds like your battery died.

This holds data in a battery fed memory that holds date and time info and boot sector location. After 5 - 10 years (or shorter if you are not plugged in) it dies. Then you sit there with no date and time to start up with.

Not sure about iMac but MacMini needs disassembly to replace the battery.

You can try and boot with your phone as the clock but don’t know the sequence how. Google vram flash for the key sequence at boot time to reset.

Just had it happen to me. And still stuck (no time to research).

Good luck!

The drive is still identifying itself so that's a good sign. The problem could be a physical issue with the drive, it could be a file system corruption, or it could be an operating system corruption. My guess is physical (bad sectors, weak or failed reader heads), but hopefully its just file system or OS corruption. Its a bloody pain to pull the drive out of those things, so here's what you should do before resorting to that.

If you connect another drive by USB, you can download a version of the operating system on the USB drive, boot from that, then see if you can access the internal drive.

To do that, you first need to boot into recovery mode. To do that hold down Option, Command and the letter R just after you turn on the computer. It will take a while to download the recovery console. Then one of the options will be to reinstall OSX. Obviously you'll need to be careful to select the USB drive, and not the internal drive. The USB drive will need to already be formatted HFS+ in order for it to give you an option to install OSX on it.

That will take a few hours to download, but then you'll be able to boot from the USB. When the iMac starts if you hold down the option key, it will allow you to choose which device to boot from.

Once you are running OSX from the USB drive, check to see if you can access the internal drive in Finder. If the problem is a OS corruption preventing the iMac from starting, it should come up normally as a secondary drive in Finder, and you can navigate to the User folder and copy all your data off. If it doesn't show up in Finder, it may be a corruption of the file system, or a physical problem with the drive. At this point you should try to image the drive, I think Stellar have free software that will allow you to create a sector by sector image of the drive in .dmg format. You'll most likely need another external USB drive plugged into to place the .dmg image file on.

If you're able to create the image, then the next step is to use data recovery software to scan the .dmg file and try to recover the data. This is will be easier on a Windows machine as there are more software options, and you will probably need to purchase one. If you plan on using a WIndows computer for the data recovery, make sure the external drive where you place the .dmg image file is formatted exFat (rather than HFS+), so WIndows can read it.

If when using Stellar to create the image file, the process fails or locks up or gives errors, it means there's a physical problem with the drive. If they're minimal then the image process may be able to complete still. But usually any physical problem will prevent the image file from being created. At that point your only bet is to take it to someone who can remove the drive from the iMac and run data recovery on the drive itself. Good luck