iMac 2009 crashes when restarting

[Sleekz76]

Hi Peeps,

My iMac keeps crashing when trying to start or restart it. It froze on the Bluetooth startup wizard thing and now my trackpad and keyboard won't link to it.

It sometimes gets to a log in screen but I can't do anything because nothing will sync to it.
I've tried unplugging it, holding the power button down, double pressing power buttons.

So far nothing will work.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

 

[honestone]

First, what exact Mac OS are you using?

Secondly, have you been making backups to an external device?

Third, what kind of third party software do you use?

 

[Sleekz76]

I'm using 10.6.8/9 the last update for snow leopard. Old I know.

The last full back up I did was maybe 8 months ago. So not very often.

And my main thing I use on it is Adobe CS 5

 

[honestone]

Not having a recent backup makes this more "risky", in terms of attempting any kind of repairs.

When did this start happening? Was it in connection with any kind of software upgrade?

What you could try is to launch Disk Utility and Repair Permissions on your drive. But, if it is a "deeper" hard drive issue, Disk Utility could be used to repair your hard drive, but 1) you would need to launch it after booting from the Snow Leopard DVD, and 2) as I said, it would be risky, as if the Disk Repair goes bad, you don't have a recent backup.

 

[Sleekz76]

Ah, crap.

It started happening today. I went to my iMac after it being in sleep mode without use for a week and it crashed. Powered down, power up. Then the keyboard and trackpad wouldn't sync.

So, I know it may be hard to guesstimate, but what are the odds of disk repair going bad?

Is it worth just leaving unplugged for a day and retrying?

Or should I take it to an Apple Store?

 

[honestone]

It's certainly getting "sticky". I don't know what else to recommend. As it is, with your machine being almost 7 years old, and assuming the original internal hard drive has never been changed, it could be going bad.

It is possible to run Disk Utility to at least verify whether your internal disk has issues. I believe the option would be "Verify Disk". The new version of Disk Utility in El Capitan, OS 10.11.1, states that option differently. I just ran it without booting from my backup on my Mac Mini (has a 256 gig SSD), and it ran without a hitch (it showed no issues, as I was expecting, given that I do perform disk cleanup/maintenance/backup every Saturday for both of my Macs).

Maybe someone else has some other things you can try.

 

[Sleekz76]

Thanks for your help though. Much appreciated.

 

[honestone]

You are welcome. Sorry I don't have anything more definitive, but that is why frequent, and recent, backups are so, so critical!