My computer won't boot. Internal drive mysteriously wiped out??

Y

ynotplay

Registered
Hi everyone, I am having issues getting my iMac with Mountain Lion installed to boot up.

I followed threads on various forums including the one on Apple and was on the verge of giving up but I was able to get the computer to boot up with option start. My internal drive didn't show up in the Option/Start screen but I started Disk Utility with by clicking on my Time Machine drive.

In Disk Utility, I can see the internal drive but says "Partition Map Scheme: Unformatted" plus it wouldn't let me verify disk or repair because its grayed out. I also noticed that there is a drive called "disk2" with an icon of the globe. One levee down is Mac OS X Base System formatted Mac OS Extended. Capacity is only 1.26 GB though.

This is driving me insane! Could something have wiped everything off my internal hard drive?


Process:

1. Computer suddenly froze while working on Illustrator. Tried to restart the computer but wouldn't.

2. Tried shift restart, took awhile but it made it to the user login screen. I was already in my bed when this happened so I didn't bother to get up and log in.

3. Woke up the next morning to the user login screen but the screen was frozen.

4. Tried restart again. Wouldn't work. Rebooted again. Apple logo on bootup gray screen wouldn't show. Instead it was a circle with diagonal line in it. Wouldn't bootup so tried the shift restart again but didn't work.

5. Reset PRAM, which worked but the computer wouldn't boot up. Now a Folder icon with ? mark.

6. Option key bootup. This took a really long time to load but eventually it brought up the screen that shows all bootable devices. Only my Time Machine external drive showed up. I clicked on it to see what would happen and I was eventually able to get to Disk Utility.

7. In Disk Utility, the internal drive is there, but it says

Partition Map Scheme: Unformatted. I also noticed that there is a drive called "disk2" with an icon of the globe. One levee down is Mac OS X Base System formatted Mac OS Extended. Capacity is only 1.26 GB though.
 
Your symptoms are those of a failing hard drive, or one that has already failed.
And, that failing drive appears to be interfering with your system booting properly.

You could try to resurrect the drive, by using a more capable disk repair utility, such as Disk Warrior.
But, if you have had problems for some time, and now is worse, it still sounds like a failing hard drive, which should just be replaced. Then you have a Time Machine backup that you can use to restore your own files and settings to the new hard drive.
Just so you know, a Time Machine backup is not bootable, and is not designed to do that.
 
Thanks for your reply! I will try and get another harddrive in there and see if that works.

"Just so you know, a Time Machine backup is not bootable, and is not designed to do that."

Any idea why would it show up in my bootable drive selection? Just out of curiosity.
 
Sure - replace yours with one that works !
:D

which iMac model do you have? That will help determine some choices.

Would you want to consider an SSD for a replacement drive?
 
I'm not sure what Model. It's like 5 years old? The monitor size is in between the two sizes that have been available on iMacs for the last few years.

No SSD because I may not get a desktop after this one fails. I heard iMacs use those smaller hard drives used in laptops. Is that true?
 
If you look at the label on the bottom of the stand, you'll see the serial number/data label.
If you post the serial number here, I can tell the exact model you have.

All iMacs, until the very newest 2012 models, use same size hard drives as any other desktop (3.5-inch, SATA hard drive, at least since the G5 processor)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top