iMac makes click sound and wont start! HELP

J

jasfa131

The Lone Deranger
I just got back home and I move my iMac's mouse to turn the screen back on. It turns back on and I notice the whole computer is frozen except for the mouse pointer (the dock wont zoom or anything). I hold the back power button to force it to shut down, but the machinery inside doesn't quite seem 100% settled yet, I can just barely hear a little fan moving, but then it too stops. Upon turning it back on with the backbutton, it makes a clicking sound over and over again (sounds like it could be the HD?) It keeps making this sound then pauses, and does it again.

It freezes on the white screen where the grey apple would usually appear. It's stuck on this white screen and keeps clicking, until I'm forced to shut it off from the back again.

I've tried shutting it down from the back, then unplugging the power, but that hasn't done anything either.



Please help, I'm kinda scared... I'm using... Vista.


(the specs of the iMac are in my sig.)
 
New mechanical sounds are never a good sign.
Sounds like a dying hard drive

Have you tried booting to your Leopard installer disk, and running Disk Utility...?
 
Well, I left it unplugged for an hour and it booted up after I plugged it back in (still with the clicking sound). I ran Disk Utility: Verify Disk and it showed a ton of problems and it said Macintosh HD needs to be repaired. I just have a couple questions about how this repair works.

1) I don't have my Leo install disk anymore (only the OEM Tiger disk), so how is this still possible?

2) Will this wipe my HD?
 
I would not recommend repairing your hard drive (with Leopard) from a Tiger install disk.

Try this:
Boot to single-user mode: Hold Command-S during boot until you see the screen with text scrolling down.
Type /sbin/fsck -fy
press return.

You'll see a disk check begin. If it finds and repairs any problems, run it again until it says 'no problems found' or appears OK with no problems found.
Type 'reboot' (without the quotes), and press return. Hope it works...
I suspect you will see errors that won't repair. You will need your Leopard disk, or a more capable disk repair utility, such as Disk Warrior.

If your hard drive is dying (I suspect that it is), then you should back up data that you need to save, and as soon as possible.
 
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Mario even if you can"repair" those tons of problems (regardless what program "fixes" the errors) it sounds as if the hard drive drove south without you. Now there is a quick trick to try to get data off that broken hard drive (the hard drive repair sites use all the time) is kind of easy but you have to have the right equipment.

1. Freezer Proof Bag (large enough to hold the drive)
2. External firewire external cable/case that you can quickly put a hard drive in, very quickly. This must be able to hook to your Mac.

Now get a new internal hard drive and install a fresh copy of OS X on it. Then update it to the current level you can go (using the same username/password that is on you broken hard drive). Then follow these steps.

1. Put the broken hard drive in the Freezer Proof bad and seal it good.
2. Place in freezer and leave it there around six hours. make sure no moisture gets to the drive.
3. Just before the freezing is done boot into your new hard drive OS X and launch /Applications/Utilities/Migration Assistant and get it ready to import you music, network settings, pictures, personal documents.

Now the following steps have to be very quickly before the hard drive thaws out.

4. Take the hard directly out of the freezer proof bag and put in very quickly to the external firewire case (that is already connected to your Mac).
5. Get you data extremely fast before the broken piece heats up and acts out to stop the drive again.

This is a very common technique to fix almost 40% of initial unfixable errors on a hard drive. The freezing help loosened hardware to bind before they hat back up. The freezing process milage will very but it is worth a try to get data from a dead drive.


Finally the moral of this story is the hard drive is not trust worthy and you should take steps now to replace it immediately.

After all is done the ultimate moral is to always have a backup. I am sorry to say this but it is a true statement that computers users should do.
 
Holy christ! I definitely have no means of pulling hardware out of the iMac, but I'll call Apple Support because I still have their bought extended warranty. I'll grab some DVDs and burn all my essential files ASAFP!
 
Wow, thats a really cool method. Can you explain how exactly that makes a broken hard drive work? I kinda wish i had a broken hard drive to try it out now, haha.
 
Simple physics and chemistry: metal stuff shrinks when it cools, expands when it warms.

One common mechanical failure of a hard drive is when the read/write arm/head gets physically "stuck" to a platter. Freezing the hard drive allows the metals to shrink ever so slightly, possibly freeing the stuck head.

It's not foolproof, and it doesn't always work -- in fact, it only works in specific instances of certain mechanical failure, and even then, it only works part of the time. It's free, though, and sometimes works well enough to allow you to get data off the drive.

It may work in other mechanical failure situations as well.
 
Well it was the HDD that was the problem, I got a new one for free. Any tips on how to prevent this from happening again?

I used to leave it on for weeks at a time.
 
Hard drives fail - then you replace failed hard drives.
That's the number one reason for a data backup plan.
There's probably nothing you can do to prevent the random failure of a mechanical device. Many Mac users leave their Mac on for weeks at a time. I usually just put mine to sleep, but sometimes goes several weeks between shutdowns. Your hard drive stops when you pur your Mac to sleep, so that's much the same as shutting the power off completely, as far as the hard drive is concerned.
 
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