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I cannot boot my 2009 20" iMac

I am having these same difficulties, as I cannot boot my 2009 20"iMac which prior to suffering a fall off my desk,was running OsX elCapitan and having 2 1Gb sticks of ram. After it fell it hasn't been able to boot and I am getting a file folder with question mark flashing. I've tried to restart in HW troubleshoot but got a brief green screen but then it powered down and did nothing. I then put in 10.6 leopard install disk 1 and when It booted in start-up mgr the only option was to start from disk 1 so I selected it and now it just keeps restarting over and over with nothing but a blank grey screen.

Posted on Dec 15, 2019 3:33 PM

Top-ranking reply

Glen Doggett

Level 4

2,747 points

Posted on Dec 15, 2019 5:38 PM

After a fall, really hard to say what might have been damaged as a result. Sounds like the hard drive can't boot, and when you try to use an install disc DVD it won't boot from that either? Booting from the OS installation DVD can take a longer time than from a normal hard drive, but sounds like you waited for a very long time with no progress.

Another possible booting alternative is to try booting from an external USB drive that has the OS on it, if you happen to have a bootable backup clone. The "?" Folder means that it can't find an OS on any mounted disc, and might mean that during the fall the internal hard drive failed, or some connections were lost.

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I cannot boot my 2009 20" iMac

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