weird screen on Disk Select Boot (opt) any ideas what it means?

N

nbee

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my mom dropped off a white polycarb intel imac that had been sitting in the box for a few months and is getting the finderface/folder/? flashing icon.

so i take it and put in my highspeed USB disk with my snow leopard install to boot to usb to check out whats going on with the imac. i hold down option and get this screen:

http://i.imgur.com/5Kn6g.jpg"]http://i.imgur.com/5Kn6g.jpg

the fans kick in high and the mouse and keyboard are not able to do anything so i cant click on either of these buttons so i have to hard power off.

so my questions are:
what is this screen?
why can't i boot to USB stick? (the dvd drive isnt working)
the computer was off for a while, would i need to replace the PRAM battery?
 
That screen is telling you that the imac cannot locate any bootable devices.
You could try to boot the imac from it's install DVD and do a disk repair, then select a startup disk from the utilities menu.
 
Does an intel Mac ever show this screen (with both the right-facing arrow, and the curly arrow?)
I don't think so, and is only on PPC Macs.

I suspect that you don't have an intel, but it's a G5 iMac... You can tell by checking the serial number sticker on the bottom of the stand.
Or, it doesn't have a built-in iSight camera, which would make it older yet. If no camera on the front, the hard drive is really easy to replace.
Finally, you can't boot a G5 with a USB device (at least, not easily)
 
aha! thanks, you are correct. i blanked out there.

so not booting from USB wouldn't be a big deal anyway because the stick is snow leopard which wouldn't install on a ppc.

i dug out my Leopard DVD and booted holding down C, got the apple logo(with out the status loading circle) and the fans are kicked in high speed again but nothing happing, been 20min.

the leopard dvd should install on PPC based machines, right?
 
DeltaMac said:
Does an intel Mac ever show this screen (with both the right-facing arrow, and the curly arrow?)
I don't think so, and is only on PPC Macs.
Click to expand...
I could say something like "I was just testing you guys", but the truth is you are right, and I totally missed that.
 
That's an easy detail to miss - glad I passed your test :D

Leopard install is fine on PPC Macs, assuming that it otherwise meets the install requirements. Any iMac G5 will be fine. I'd recommend maxing out the RAM - non-iSight iMac will be 2 x 1GB, and an iSight G5 can go to 2.5 GB, and has only one RAM slot.

nbee - I suspect that you have a bad hard drive, or some other issue' like not enough RAM to boot to the Leopard installer.
For some more help with that - you should tell us if your iMac has an iSight camera on the top of the front display bezel. That model is very challenging to open up.
If no camera, then getting inside is very easy...
Let us know what you have...
 
This is a non iSight model. i have replaced the power supply on similar models before so when this showed up i thought this was a similar issue.

even if there is no HD shouldn't i still be able to boot to DVD?

thanks for your help.
 
A bad/dead hard drive could interfere with booting to a DVD.
If the hard drive has been removed, then booting to a DVD should work, yes...

Do you know how much RAM memory is installed?
Have you opened up the back to check for any swelling capacitors (always a 'fun' issue on the G5 iMacs?)
 
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