Chosen Solution
Hi again. Still having problems with this 2007 iMac I was given. I did get the Snow Leopard install disc to eject, and when I restarted it, it gave me the classic blinking “? file” symbol. I tried plugging in a USB with elementaryOS as well as inserting a DVD with the ISO file on it, and all I’m getting is a blank white screen. Holding “option” on startup doesn’t work either. I’m not really certain what to do now. If it’s the logic board, I really am toast. =/ Any suggestions?
@danj Not the GPU she’s getting a flashing ? mark. The machine needs a system and her optical drive isn’t working. Either get a firewire cable to install from another mac or another USB external source with a system on it she can install from. Snowy – Until you have the right tools to fix it. Leave it alone. Get that cable! UPDATE iMac Intel 20" EMC 2133 and 2210 Hard Drive Replacement
Well lets back up here a bit why are you trying to install elementaryOS? Lets start things again… You tried to install Snow Leopard but it wouldn’t load from the optical drive? Do you have access to a second Mac system as well as a FireWire cable which you can connect the two systems together? For reference: Use target disk mode to share files between two Mac computers. In this case we’re going to leverage the other system to reformat your internal drive Are you able to do that? If not your drive is toast not the system. From the other Mac you’ll also need to gain access to the OS installer (El Capitan OS-X 10.11) from the App store or if your friend already has it on his system that would be great! Now we’ll need to setup a USB OS installer thumb drive following this guide: How to make a bootable OS X 10.11 El Capitan installer drive Update (08/25/2017) OK… Let’s go ahead and make that USB El Capitan installer so we can at least boot the system. The installer OS is a smaller footprint OS than the full El Capitan OS. Does the system start up?
