iMac problems

angelsmomma

Hi, can anyone help, I am in Bulgaria and there is no apple support here. Every time I clicked on anything the beachball appeared and it took ages to load. I ran disk utility and erased then tried to reinstall using the recovery option to download OSX lion. it wouldn't verify my computer so now I have no system and it is telling me to contact customer support which I can't here in Bulgaria. Any ideas please on what I can do, I am running disk utility again but it is painfully slow. so thought I would ask on here. Thanks

jaybeetoo

Try the Apple support forum at https://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa

angelsmomma

I already did but am asking on here as well since no-one has answered yet and I usually find the people on here really helpful

Moneymaker

Well, it might be slightly illegal so I'm not going to suggest that you download a "Lion" installer from a torrent and put it on a USB memory stick.

BTW I'm not clear about what wouldn't "verify" your computer, nor why. Are you saying that your Hard Drive is failing? They usually last 3 - 5 years. How old is it? Have you an external backup drive with you?

almillar

If you're able to run disk utility and 'Repair Disk Permissions' on your hard drive (you can do this from a boot CD/DVD if your computer won't boot from hard drive. After running that, your hard drive may be fried and getting worse with every little bit of use you give it...

angelsmomma

Hi Moneymaker it is 25 months old. It wouldn't verify the re-install after I used disk utility to erase. It told me it was going to verify the computer and I had to put in the serial number then said it couldn't verify.

That said I let it cool down as it was very hot unplugged everything and tried again later on. I managed to go through disk utility again and this time it verified my serial number and started the re-install. It took 8 hours but I am now back to factory settings again and it is working fine.

Thanks for the help I didn't get one reply on the apple boards unfortunately

securityguy

angelsmomma wrote: »

Hi Moneymaker it is 25 months old. It wouldn't verify the re-install after I used disk utility to erase. It told me it was going to verify the computer and I had to put in the serial number then said it couldn't verify.

What serial number? No Apple operating has required verifying liceses for ages. That's why the Hackintosh community can exist. If it's 25 months old it's running 10.7 Lion at a minimum (released July 2011) and that certainly doesn't require an explicit license. If it's that the machine itself can't find its own hardware serial number then it's a hardware fault in the NVRAM which stores that information.

That said I let it cool down as it was very hot unplugged everything and tried again later on.

Hmm, that's not good.

Moneymaker

securityguy wrote: »

What serial number? No Apple operating has required verifying liceses for ages.

That's almost true, although I noticed last week that 10.6.3 "server" does require one.

Anyway, let this be a lesson. Always have an installer .dmg on a memory stick, as a minimum, plus a backup drive.

standinman2009

if your near an apple store why don't you book an appointment at the genius bar ,its free and you could take in your imac and they'd try to sort you and if they cant give you free and impartial advice !

securityguy

Moneymaker wrote: »

That's almost true, although I noticed last week that 10.6.3 "server" does require one..

Indeed, the specialised "Server" releases had different licensing, which was one of the appeals of buying the packaged hardware; I've got a lovely "old shape" plastic Core 2 Duo Mini with no DVD drive and two hard drive bays, which was a steal at the price as it included an unlimited client OSX Server license. But the last release of OSX Server was as you say 10.6, and it was never aimed at consumers.

Gratis

standinman2009 wrote: »

if your near an apple store why don't you book an appointment at the genius bar ,its free and you could take in your imac and they'd try to sort you and if they cant give you free and impartial advice !

The OP is in Bulgaria.

angelsmomma wrote: »

Hi, can anyone help, I am in Bulgaria and there is no apple support here. Every time I clicked on anything the beachball appeared and it took ages to load. I ran disk utility and erased then tried to reinstall using the recovery option to download OSX lion. it wouldn't verify my computer so now I have no system and it is telling me to contact customer support which I can't here in Bulgaria. Any ideas please on what I can do, I am running disk utility again but it is painfully slow. so thought I would ask on here. Thanks