Imac won't boot at all, makes clicking sound

[mchgh9]

Hi, my iMac doesn't want to play ball. It just makes this ticking sound as if maybe an electrical capacitor isn't working or something? It definitely has power going to it and the fuse is OK. Screen remains totally blank.

If I can't find a solution I think I will have to learn how to salvage the hard drive from the computer and recover the data. I also have a MacBook Pro if that could be used to help somehow?

It's the G5 intel model.

 

[honestone]

Maybe you iMac has a small battery that needs to be replaced. If you let us know the exact model iMac you have, one of us can see if that's the case.

Even if your iMac and your MacBook Pro have Firewire 800 ports (so that you can boot the iMac in Target Disk Mode), the screen remaining black is a serious issue. You might want to try that, so that you could use software on your MacBook Pro to possibly "fix" the issue.

Short of that, once you let us know the exact iMac model you have, I could point you to the ifixit site for instructions on how to remove the hard drive. Once you do that, you can place the hard drive inside an external case, connect it to your MacBook Pro, and recover any data you need.