Internet Recovery stuck on globe with progress bar

[BangkokMac]

Hello Everybody!

I'm trying to fix the iMac (27-inch, Mid 2010) of my friend. He said it doesn't boot anymore and just gets stuck on the grey screen with the Apple logo and the spinning wheel below. So my first step was to go into the Startup Manager by pressing the Option key after the chime. There I was presented with the Macintosh HD and the Recovery HD. After selecting the Recovery HD to access the Disk Utilities I got stuck on the grey screen with the Apple logo and the spinning wheel again. So I guess the data on the drive is corrupted and might have to be replaced. But before I do that, I wanted to give the Internet Recovery a try. I connected the iMac to the internet using an ethernet cable and pressed Command + Option + R after the chime and the spinning globe appeared with the info: "starting recovery process from network. This may take a while". After a short time the sentences are replaced by a progress bar and a timer that is counting up. The progress bar then didn't move and the timer just keeps counting the seconds. I waited for quiet some time before I gave up. I did not get any errors so I can't provide any other useful information. Can anyone give my some advice? I read in other posts that the ISPs of specific countries block ports which are needed for the internet recovery. I'm in Thailand right now. Does anyone know if that might cause the problem?

Thank you for all your help!

 

[oldscribe]

Hi,

Which OS X is the iMac running, also does your friend have original disks being 2010 model think they would be Snow Lepard.

 

[BangkokMac]

I asked my friend the same questions. Sadly he doesn't know which version of OS X is installed and he said he doesn't have any disks. Since the iMac doesn't boot I can't check for the version myself.

I tried the internet recovery again after my post yesterday and it actually worked. It was just extremely slow and took more than 2 hours until the process was finished and I got into the disk utilities. I then verified the disk. The verification wasn't completed and ended with an error and I was told to repair the disk. The disk utilities could not repair the disk in the next step and displayed that I should back up my data and format the disk. Since my friend said he does't need any data on that iMac I went ahead and formatted the disk. This worked fine and I went on to install OS X online. After typing in my friends Apple ID to verify his account the download of OS X Mavericks started and displayed a remaining time of roughly 6 hours. After 2 minutes the progress bar jumped to the end and the remaining time was down to 0 seconds. After that nothing happened anymore for the next hour and I canceled the installation process and was back in the disk utilities. There I wanted to verify the disk again. This task got stuck and I had to canceled it too. I tried to format the disk again but I was given the error that the disk can't be unmounted. After some research online it seems to be a bigger problem. The most common solution for this error seems to be a bootable USB stick. Sadly I do not have access to one and also can't create one since my friend is the only guy I know who uses a Mac and there are no official Apple stores in Thailand! Only some authorized service providers but those shops would be my last resort since I had to deal with them before and that wasn't a great experience.

I'm open for any tips!

 

[oldscribe]

Hi,

Can you boot into safe mode?

1. Shut down your Mac fully
2. Press the power button.
3. Immediately after you hear the startup tone, hold down the Shift key.
   You should press the Shift key as soon as possible after you hear the startup tone, but not before.
   
   
4. Release the Shift key when you see the gray Apple logo and progress indicator (spinning gear).

If you do get to safe mode to leave restart your Mac normally without holding down any keys during startup.

 

[BangkokMac]

No, I could not boot into safe mode. When I picked the iMac up it already didn't boot anymore. Not in standard mode and not in safe mode. That is why I wanted to use the recovery option since that partition was displayed when I booted into the Startup Manager through holding down the option key after the chime. But I could not boot into Recovery either. So I tried the Internet Recovery as my last option. Since the Disk Utilities in the Internet Recovery found an error on the disk and I was told to format the disk I have an entirely empty disk now.

I found a way to create a bootable USB stick for Macs using a Windows computer. I'm working on that right now. I'll report back if it worked.

 

[oldscribe]

Hi,

Yes post back results of above.

 

[honestone]

When you get the iMac up and running, make sure to do the following:

1. Make a backup right away. Time Machine is fine, but if I were you, I'd also use SuperDuper! (available in a free version) to make another, bootable backup.

2. "Make" another copy of the "Install OS X Mavericks" file. Typically, the original is kept inside the Applications Folder. But, if you boot from an external SuperDuper! backup and launch that file, it goes away after the installation. So, it's prudent to make at least one other copy of it somewhere else (I have a copy of mine in another folder separate from the Applications folder).

3. To "check out" the internal hard drive inside the iMac, you might need a more robust Disk program like Disk Warrior or Tech Tool Pro. Either of those can do helpful tasks beyond Disk Utility.

 

[BangkokMac]

Hey!

The idea with the bootable USB stick didn't work out. Somehow it just would not boot from the stick even though it was recognized in the Startup Manager as an OS X Install DVD. So I gave the Internet Recovery another try and to my surprise it worked this time. It took quiet long but in the end it worked. So the iMac is up and running again. Now on the latest version of Mavericks. I ran some HDD testing tools and everything seems to be fine. Fingers crossed. My friend is happy that he can use it again but I told him to have a close look and if it starts to get slow or he sees any random errors he should consider replacing the HDD.

Thank you very much for your help and tips, especially about the backup options. I passed those on to my friend.

 

[honestone]

That's good news! One thing your friend should do is run Disk Utility via Command + R (since he does not have an external, bootable backup) and let it Verify and Repair Permissions, and Verify and Repair the Disk). Also, and this is good advice for anyone on this site, consider getting a more robust Disk Repair program, like Disk Warrior or Tech Tool Pro. Disk Utility can perform quite a few repairs, but there are instances where one needs either of the two I mentioned. I have both of them, and I'm glad I do. In fact, I run Tech Tool Pro once a week on both of my machines as part of my cleanup/maintenance/backup processing.

And, with the machine being over 4 years old, there is the possibility that the internal hard drive is starting to go bad. One can replace the drive on their own, but let's leave that for another day.

 

[BangkokMac]

Thank you for the additional tips. I'll make sure his iMac gets the right treatment this time.