mac repair Need help fixing an old iMac...

[K_swadling]

Okay so, a friend of mine gave me their iMac, model A1312, and saidsaid it was broken, allegedly the hard drive inside it had failed and needed a repair. Now, after trying to boot up the system, i found that there was no OS found on any drives(shown the the flashing question mark in a folder icon), upon entering the iMacs drive utility menu through the recovery, I had noticed that the drive had failed completely, not just some corrupted files on the system, there was no verification available nor were there any repair options, and such i wiped the drive.

 

After a few days, i decided to try and install it myself, so i grabbed an old(but working) hard drive, and found the original operating system for that model, the Snow Leopard version 10.6, after trying to boot with that drive, the same no OS found symbol appeared, and after holding down the option key to choose a drive, there were no prompts available, so i couldn't try booting from that drive. A few days later, I obtained an official install CD for the Snow Leopard OS and inserted that, to no avail mind you, and nothing i found online had worked, no keyboard shortcuts during the startup, clearing the PRAM, nothing has worked so far. 

 

So that brings me to here, wondering if i had just missed something stupid and small, or if there is actually no way to restore the system, any input or feedback i can get would be appreciated, thanks in advance.

[WhitetailAni]

I'm going to walk myself through your troubleshooting process myself to make sure I understood it correctly:
1. You got the iMac, knowing that the HDD had purportedly failed.

2. You booted it up and it showed that there were no drives with an OS.

3. You were able to boot into Recovery Mode, and the drive OS section was completely blank.

4. You attempted to boot from an external hard drive with OS X 10.6 installed as a boot drive/as an installer.

5A. The boot drive OS X 10.6 failed.             5B. The OS X 10.6 on the external HDD failed.

6. You inserted an OS X 10.6 install DVD and it failed as well.

Did I get anything wrong?

 

Now for a few questions:

1. It currently has a blank internal HDD, correct?

2. Did your external 10.6 HDD have a 10.6 installer (to boot from to install an OS to a different drive) or an install of 10.6 (that you would boot a Mac from to use the OS, not to install it)?

3. Have you replaced the internal hard drive?

[ProjectBox153]

If the internal drive has failed (and some of the 1TB Seagate drives used in these iMacs were known to fail) then you'll need to open the machine up and replace it. Once you do that you'll want to install macOS. I wouldn't bother with Snow Leopard, even as a starting point. Get a macOS High Sierra installer instead.

[K_swadling]

Yes that process is correct.

Now, as for the questions:

1. the internal HDD i had installed into it isn't blank, it has the install DMG file for 10.6, nothing else on it. 

2. Both drives, external and internal had the 10.6 installer on it, as i could not get a copy of the actual installed OS, i do not have any other Mac systems to obtain a copy.

3. I have replaced the internal drive from the original it came with, i had recently used said drive to run an install of Linux so i know that it isn't a failed drive. 

[ProjectBox153]

Just now, K_swadling said:

Yes that process is correct.

Now, as for the questions:

1. the internal HDD i had installed into it isn't blank, it has the install DMG file for 10.6, nothing else on it. 

2. Both drives, external and internal had the 10.6 installer on it, as i could not get a copy of the actual installed OS, i do not have any other Mac systems to obtain a copy.

3. I have replaced the internal drive from the original it came with, i had recently used said drive to run an install of Linux so i know that it isn't a failed drive. 

Would you mind posting the serial number of the iMac for me? It's located on the bottom of the stand. That will tell me all the info I need to know about it. I've got an idea as to what your problem might be, but I'm not certain. 

[K_swadling]

1 minute ago, ProjectBox153 said:

If the internal drive has failed (and some of the 1TB Seagate drives used in these iMacs were known to fail) then you'll need to open the machine up and replace it. Once you do that you'll want to install macOS. I wouldn't bother with Snow Leopard, even as a starting point. Get a macOS High Sierra installer instead.

I had replaced the internal hard drive with one of my own already, that had been working. I tried with a higher OS, but was told that the latest versions of MacOS were incompatible, and that i should install the original OS and then update it once it was successful

[WhitetailAni]

1 minute ago, K_swadling said:

1. the internal HDD i had installed into it isn't blank, it has the install DMG file for 10.6, nothing else on it. 

Ok.

You'll need a High Sierra bootable USB. If you need a DMG/APP of it, I can DM you one.

Boot the USB and install High Sierra.

Assuming no complications, you should be fine.

[ProjectBox153]

2 minutes ago, K_swadling said:

I tried with a higher OS, but was told that the latest versions of MacOS were incompatible, and that i should install the original OS and then update it once it was successful

You can run up to macOS 10.13 High Sierra on that iMac. It's not the latest, but it's not old. Installing older versions of macOS (such as Snow Leopard) can be tricky these days.

[K_swadling]

3 minutes ago, ProjectBox153 said:

Would you mind posting the serial number of the iMac for me? It's located on the bottom of the stand. That will tell me all the info I need to know about it. I've got an idea as to what your problem might be, but I'm not certain. 

Yes I can certainly do that.

[K_swadling]

2 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

Ok.

You'll need a High Sierra bootable USB. If you need a DMG/APP of it, I can DM you one.

Boot the USB and install High Sierra.

Assuming no complications, you should be fine.

I can give that a shot. Do i need to have the installer for it, or the actual OS. And i believe i had a bootable USB for mac, using the TransMac application on windows

[WhitetailAni]

Just now, K_swadling said:

I can give that a shot. Do i need to have the installer for it, or the actual OS.

Installer.

Just now, K_swadling said:

And i believe i had a bootable USB for mac, using the TransMac application on windows

Yep - as long as it's a High Sierra installer, you should be good!

[ProjectBox153]

Just now, K_swadling said:

Yes I can certainly do that.

Thanks. You've got the higher end 2009 model. That's the oldest 27" iMac ever made, but it's still nice. Here is a link to several versions of macOS. Try El Capitan or High Sierra. If you try El Cap let me know - it works, but you have to do something before you can install it. 

[K_swadling]

3 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

Installer.

Yep - as long as it's a High Sierra installer, you should be good!

Okay thank you, i'll give that a try as soon as it's downloaded. Now, when i tried to boot from the USB in the first place, nothing had happened, i couldn't select if from the drives menu to boot from, is there something else i needed to do to achieve this?

[WolframaticAlpha]

On 3/1/2021 at 9:29 AM, K_swadling said:

Yes that process is correct.

Now, as for the questions:

1. the internal HDD i had installed into it isn't blank, it has the install DMG file for 10.6, nothing else on it. 

2. Both drives, external and internal had the 10.6 installer on it, as i could not get a copy of the actual installed OS, i do not have any other Mac systems to obtain a copy.

3. I have replaced the internal drive from the original it came with, i had recently used said drive to run an install of Linux so i know that it isn't a failed drive. 

Use gibmacos to get OSX dmg's. Its mainly used for hackintoshes, but I believe it will work for you too.