(first time poster) the old flashing question mark...

[mykel]

Hello. Some of this may not be relevant, but in the interest of informing you all as fully as possible i'll divulge.

I've got an i mac (bought it about 2-3 years ago, can't get the exact info up for you sorry) running leopard.

last week i got the dreaded question mark flashing up. I reset PRAM then put in the start up disk. Restarted it from the start up disk once, then the hard drive icon appeared when it re loaded so i restarted it from there and everything was fine!

Same thing just happened. except this time the the hard drive just isn't appearing.

All the relevant support advice stops here and tells me to contact apple. But i'm not up for paying anyone!

Is it worth trying to reset the PMU? How would i even do that on the IMAC?


Also is it just a coincidence that this problem started when i moved in to a new flat and set the mac up in a cold and slightly damp room? A couple of times i've come to turn it on and the screen has been fogged up with a kind of cloudy effect behind the glass. That can't be good? I'm gonna move it to the front room where it's a little warmer, see what happens!

Wont start in safe mode either. when i hold down shift, c or d on start up it just spits out the startup disk.

 

[mykel]

okay, i moved it into a warmer room and kept on going through the motions. eventually the hard drive appeared and let me start it from there... Any ideas as to what could be happening?

Anyone else think it could be moisture?

 

[mykel]

Okay, so i just stuck at resetting the PRAM and restarting from the start up disk, occasionally shutting it down for an hour and leaving it. Eventually for no obvious reason the hard drive finally popped up on the start up disk.

It's very sluggish, i'm scared to give it too much to do and it locks up with the beach ball for minutes at a time.

A couple of times since the first post it's frozen up entirely and i've been forced to restart it and every time it's failed to find the hard drive... No flashing question mark last time though, just the white screen.

It's been in a better room for a couple of days (as far as humidity/dampness goes) but i'm not sure what's going on or what my next step is if it doesn't get better?

Two things correspond to the start of these problems. The first is the moving of the imac to a cold damp room. The second is the use and installation of software from a T Mobile dongle!

Any body got any input or suggestions?

 

[Walrus666]

Hello,
Here's some more things that you can try.