old mac starting up like new

[riamonkey]

I have an iMac which I bought in 2007 (intel,20in, ModelA1207) it has been running fine, I just moved and due to complications did not setup the computer right away so it sat in the box for about 2 weeks to my knowledge it never left the box but there was 4 days I was away and someone else was in the apartment.

I plugged it in, turned it on it took forever to start, couldn't find the mouse right away, then started with the welcome to tiger video and wants me to register the mac like when I first bought it. I go through the steps then:

It asks at one point if I want to transfer information from another mac or a partition from this mac and it says" no versions of mac OS X were found." does this mean I lost everything on the computer?

I say don't transfer anything then continue but it always freezes on the create your account window. (I have tried 3 times now)

why is it doing this? What can I do to get it up and running again? and is my data lost for ever?

Any insight would be great

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

Do you have the original instal disc/s that came with your iMac? This is very important for when you are faced with the set of circumstances like yours.

What Mac OS version do you have installed? Tiger?

So, first thing is we need you to have those discs, either the original grey discs or a set of Full Retail Install discs which are universal discs and not just for the Mac they shipped with.

Secondly, we need to find out what's happened to your data. Do you have a lot of personal data like emails, photos, movies, docs etc? We need to try our best shot to recover them.

Having said that, don't worry that all is lost because we don't have enough info from you about the full picture yet.

Did you have a password set? Was your iMac set up to log directly into your account at startup, or would a log in window show with users needing a password?

Have you spoken to the other person about your iMac?

Let us know how you get on

 

[riamonkey]

It is Tiger, I did not have a password, I do have the disk! I have not spoken to the person about the mac. I already tried putting the CD in and repairing permissions, and then repairing the disk but after it restarted it still was still trying to get me to register and what I mention before.

There is some personal stuff, luckily not the e-mail, some videos and photo, and writing that I would like to keep. I backed things up a couple of months ago so the lost should not be that bad, but bad enough where I would really like to prevent it.