Why won't my iMac 17 Boot?

[iMore Question]

Imac 17" Wont Boot

I found an old imac 17" and I am trying to get it to work. When I first turned it on it gave me the option to sign in with a password through the original user or Admin. obviously I don't have the password since I found it. after it being like that for weeks I developed the courage to try restoring it. before doing anything I restart it to watch what it does when it reboots so I can become more familiar with how it operates before I make an attempt to restore. well when I did that I can no longer get it to boot. i'm seeing everywhere on google and such that it is a common problem for it to get to the apple logo with the spinning wheel. after doing some research I have seen tricks like holding the option key with the power on button or holding command and R to try to gain access to the disk utility. well I have no way of getting to the disk utility. I saw on youtube that when the guy held the option and power button, he had two hard drives to choose from, I have one. when I click on it, It goes to the apple logo with the spinning wheel again and itll do that for days. So what do I do to get past this? how can I get this to boot or get to the disk utility or do anything to make this thing work. Thank you so much for all of your help.

 

[iEd]

Re: Imac 17" Wont Boot

You can try booting it from a system disk either Mac OS Tiger or maybe Mac OS Leopard. Research and find out the highest OS it will take. If you can get your hands on a OS disk you can put the disk in start the computer while holding the letter C key. The computer should then boot from the system disk and you could reinstall the system software.


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