IMac

[Irons_phoenix]

Hey,
my cousin just got a IMac for school work. It won't bootup. it make the start up sound. then goes white/blue.
thanks

[Buzz]

How long are you waiting for it to boot?
If it's making the sound it means all the hardware is fine.

Usually there will be some indication of something wrong, not just a grey or blue screen. The grey or blue screen will always appear as the system boots up.

[Irons_phoenix]

I left it on over nite, and it did not boot. the keyboard and mouse(opt) Lights come on But the Keyboard lights(caps,num...) stay on and wont turn off. it will sometimes (i don't know how my uncle did it, but he pressed some buttons on the back) ask to enter "mac-boot" or "restart" but thats it.
thanks.

[Buzz]

Do you have an retail OSX CD?

[Irons_phoenix]

It did not come with anything, so no.

[Buzz]

Well, you sort of need a bootable CD at this point.

You would be able to boot from the CD and run some system tools to ensure everything is okay.


In any event, here are a couple things to try.

Boot into safe mode by holding down the "Shift" key while the Mac boots up. If it does boot up it's an indication that there's some third party software that is causing a problem. In which case you really need to OS CD again, to reinstall the OS.

If it doesn't boot up you can try booting into single user mode by holding down the "s" key while the Mac boots up. You'll get a black screen with text. type this exactly:

reset-nvram (Press Return key)
reset-all (Press Return key)

The Mac should then reboot. If it doesn't boot up all the way... again you need to OS CD.