iMac wont boot up

[JordanF]

Not sure if this belongs in the Mac Thread or the Hardware Thread...........So apologies if this is in the wrong place but heregoes:

 

I have here a late 2006 iMac running (or was) 10.6.8 that won't boot and showed me the "question mark" folder icon upon startup. The first time I could press "option" to get to the bootpicker, the internal HD was not showing but I could boot up off an external HD running 10.7.4. I tried to mount the internal HD in disk utility, but disk utility couldnt see it.

I restarted the machine again and it saw the Internal HD and booted off it and worked for about an hour running under 10.6.8 and then froze again. So the machine was again restarted, but is now giving me a prohibitory sign! I cant even access the bootpicker!!

 

This mac is a factory late 2006 17" iMac 2.0 Core 2 Duo with 1GB Ram and nothing has been modified btw.

I have tried zapping the PRAM, resetting the SMC, reseating the RAM all to no avail...

 

Thanks in advance....

[FN-GM]

Sounds like hard drive failure to me.

[JordanF]

Yes, but it won't boot up to any other volumes either

Thanks for your reply

[Dos_Box]

Moving to Mac thread.

[Dos_Box]

Try fitting a new HD and installing OSX again to see how you get on. If it fails on this you can be sure it's a problem other than the drive.

6 Years old? Sounds like it's coming to end of life anyway and you can expect something to go 'pop' eventually.

[FN-GM]

Yes, but it won't boot up to any other volumes either

Thanks for your reply

 

In post one you said you could...

[JordanF]

Yeah, but on subsequent reboots I cant.... I think I'll just put this one in the too hard basket...

Thanks for the assistance everyone! Just thought I'd at least make an attempt to fix it...