Help with OS 10.4 reinstall

A

aeon077

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I've been having a few problems with my intel based imac (late 2007, OS 10.4.?, 1GB ram). First it was running very slowly. I ran the disk repair utility, repaired permissions, etc. I also tried running Onyx to clear all caches, etc. It still continued to run very slowly.
Tonight the computer was stuck on a blank screen when I woke it up, so I force restarted by holding down the power button. It failed to start up. It was stuck on a gray screen with the spinning dial. So I tried a safe boot, and basically, that's not working either. The log is really long, and I'm unable to copy/paste this since it's on a different computer. But the last line is stuck at and repeating :
disk0s2: 0xe0030003 (UNDEFINED)

I do have another mac laptop, and everything is backed up, so I've decided that I want to try to wipe out and reinstall the OS on the imac. Does this sound like what I should do at this point? Or is there another fix?

My next question is regarding the fact that I can't find the install disks for my imac. But I do have my install disks for my macbook. The imac was running OS 10.4, my macbook install disks are for OS 10.5. Can I use these install disks on my imac? I just don't want to mess it up even more.

Thanks in advance for any help!!
 
The macbook disks will probably boot the iMac and may actually install to it, but I think you are wasting your time until you replace the hard drive. Boot to the installers and go to disk utility and check to see if disk utility even sees the drive and if it does check the SMART status at the bottom of disk utility. If it says failed the drive is a goner. You can try to repair the directory structure through disk utility if the drive even shows and to see where it errors out at, but my professional opinion from what you are saying is the HD is toast.
 
I was able to run the disk utility off the Install disk. It wouldn't let me install it though. But I was able to see the hard drive. The SMART status is Verified. So I ran a disk verify and it says:
disk utility stopped verifying "Macintosh HD" because the following error was encountered:
Filesystem verify or repair failed.

Then in the details it says in red:
Volume Header needs minor repair

The volume Macintosh DH needs to be repaired.
Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.
 
Your only other option is a heavier duty directory structure repair tool such as DiskWarrior which may or may not help. But even after DiskWarrior works its majic you may still need to reinstall the OS. But DiskWarrior is a good tool for further investigating a potentially bad drive. What you could try to do is boot the iMac with the macbook installers while holding down the D key. This way you may be able to run Apple Hardware Test if the version on the macbook installers also supports the iMac. Otherwise you are going to need the iMac installers.
 
Well...we actually found the correct install disk late last night. But this morning the computer seems to be doing worse. Now it's not really recognizing the harddrive...like you said in the first place. Under the SMART status it says "Not Supported". When I tried to run the install disk, when it got to the part where it selects the target volume, it could see it, but it basically just kept spinning it's wheels, and never verified the volume to select. So does this look like I need to get a new h/d?

If so, where do I start with that? The h/d in there now is a 250 GB Serial ATA hard drive. I haven't been able to find anything that matches it. Everything seems to be SATA now.
 
aeon077 said:
If so, where do I start with that? The h/d in there now is a 250 GB Serial ATA hard drive. I haven't been able to find anything that matches it. Everything seems to be SATA now.
Click to expand...

SATA is an abbreviation for Serial ATA.

If you're machine is a intel iMac like you stated, it takes a 3.5" SATA HD. You can choose any size you like. Might as well go bigger because the prices for larger drives are getting cheaper every day and the smaller drives are being phased out.
 
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