A friend of mine has an old desktop imac computer. (The one that has the hard drive/computer all in one.
When you press the power button, there is no sound that comes from the computer, can't hear the hard drive spinning. After a little while a question mark pops on the screen and then a sad face pops on the screen.
It won't load and this is all that happens.
Any ideas??
Originally posted by uzlessIt's a paper weight now.
A friend of mine has an old desktop imac computer. (The one that has the hard drive/computer all in one.
When you press the power button, there is no sound that comes from the computer, can't hear the hard drive spinning. After a little while a question mark pops on the screen and then a sad face pops on the screen.
It won't load and this is all that happens.
Any ideas??
P-
Sadly enough Seitse is probably right.
There are several problems imaginable:
* Mainboard
* connection to hard drive
* the hard drive itself
Since Apple is very specific about their hardware there is little chance that you can do any significant repair yourself. And a question is of course if your friend is willing to pay a lot for that repair. Just buy an old PC and run LINUX.
it would be interestin to know tha events that happened fer tha several days afore tha initial boot failure...
did yer friend download anything "strange"???
tha results of a boot attempt, a question mark and a sad face sound a lot like a trojan or worm infection rather than a disk failure...
i know...
macs rarely get infected...
that day iz coming soon when the "safety" of using a mac will be over...
soon...
try booting from a disk rather than tha hard drive...
good luck...
rookie
Originally posted by rookie54no strange downloads, nothing out of the ordinary...just all of a sudden.
it would be interestin to know tha events that happened fer tha several days afore tha initial boot failure...
did yer friend download anything "strange"???
tha results of a boot attempt, a question mark and a sad face sound a lot like a trojan or worm infection rather than a disk failure...
i know...
macs rarely get infected...
that day iz coming soon ...[text shortened]...
soon...
try booting from a disk rather than tha hard drive...
good luck...
rookie
Originally posted by uzlessIf the question mark is flashing then it usually means it can't find the files to boot the OS.
A friend of mine has an old desktop imac computer. (The one that has the hard drive/computer all in one.
When you press the power button, there is no sound that comes from the computer, can't hear the hard drive spinning. After a little while a question mark pops on the screen and then a sad face pops on the screen.
It won't load and this is all that happens.
Any ideas??
The sad face display is supposed to indicate a hardware issue.
At a guess I'd say your hard-drive is dead.
The question mark is an indication that the Mac cannot find a drive with an OS on it. Stick the restore CD (or DVD) that came with the machine in the drive and boot from that (hold down C while powering on) and see if it will boot from the CD/DVD. If it does, a new hard drive is needed. If not, I suggest your friend looks on ebay for a new Mac, the one I am using now cost me £25. This might also be the sensible thing to do if a new hard drive is needed, replacing a hard drive on a Mac can involve a great deal of swearing and perspiration.
Originally posted by KeplerI would tell said friend to just save himself the bother and get a PC.
The question mark is an indication that the Mac cannot find a drive with an OS on it. Stick the restore CD (or DVD) that came with the machine in the drive and boot from that (hold down C while powering on) and see if it will boot from the CD/DVD. If it does, a new hard drive is needed. If not, I suggest your friend looks on ebay for a new Mac, the one I am u ...[text shortened]... s needed, replacing a hard drive on a Mac can involve a great deal of swearing and perspiration.