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Model A1312 / Mid 2011 / 2.7 & 3.1 GHz Core i5 or 3.4 GHz Core i7 Processor, ID iMac12,2

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Graphical errors, cannot boot osx, AHT does not detect errors either

So to give some info, i had OSX Mavericks Boot-camping Win 7. This setup has worked perfect. I did have an issue in i think it was called the MBR? sorry if not... but what happened was i partitioned my already partitioned drive again, which causes me to not be able to boot to windows, which i fixed and i could launch to windows again. So that's the only error ive had with it, but was caused by me.

Video of Whats Going On

That^ is a video of before the AHT test, and i never continued it so from there ill describe whats been happening. so i say at the end its working if i don't continue it but that's a lie so yeah disregard.

THIS IS FROM THE START OF MY PROBLEMS :

I also could not boot into OSX during any of this.

So i started having random crashes about 3-5 days ago, it started with a white screen, to the blue screen of death. after i booted to windows 3 times, all times it crashed within 10-15 minutes all went to White screen to blue screen of death. During these boot attempts i had issues with the screen. thinking i had some nasty virus i booted to safe mode, ran a TON of scans with AVG PC tune up, and Removed tons of junk files. Booted safe mode a second time and its colors were distorted and more contrast-y (not a word, i know) so right then and there im like is my graphics card dying?? After that i found a win7 disc to reinstall or repair, but first i got my files on my external in safe mode, so i try to repair and cannot, so im like meh ill wipe and re-install the partition, still graphical errors after re-install and super zoomed resolution. so that was unusable, and so i made the executive decision to restore my drive to one partition, i got rid of windows partition and its recovery partition, then wiped the OSX Partition. Which i realize now i probably could have used it there. But i will touch on this part again soon.

So after all that i decided go on another computer i have access to, put VMWARE on and cracked it and made a guest OSX, created a bootable Mountain Lion drive on disk utility, and it wont even install. im sitting here thinking, "great no OSX on it now, cant install it and i can only use a SH*TTY windows." So in turn i wish i didnt wipe the drive of OSX. back to google i go and trying to figure out what is causing this, well the symptoms of a dead logic board are pretty accurate, crashes, graphical errors, lines, hot at the back(not 100% of the time, but my arm has touched it by accident before and it was quite hot, but this was months before this). so im like great my logic boards dead. looked around online, not horrible to replace, but then im like wait ill call this guy who has tons of Mac computers who lives nearby, ask if has one, then he suggested running the AHT (didnt even know i still had a disc that will run it, good thing since the drive is wiped) to be sure its my Logic board before i buy one, so i run the extended one, took about 1H:15M, and it detected NO PROBLEMS!? i was hoping for a problem so i know what to fix...well i called the guy back and he said he has had that happen before, he said he had to replace the hard drive, and that a faulty hard drive can cause this, but ive never heard of graphical errors from a hard drive so here i am getting a second opinion.

So here in short form is what i can/cant do:

-can install and work on windows but basically safe mode only

-cannot boot to OSX from disc, USB

-cannot install from USB or disc

During the last 2 listed if i tried to do those they would show the apple logo, a progress bar, and the spinning circle, (not the beach ball, the lines spinning in a circle) the bar would go like 5% full then shut off.

So i have no idea what to do here, if any of you can suggest anything that would be great, i can give more info for whatever is asked but im sure this is a long enough text already, i really hope someone has some idea what to do with this!

Answered! View the answer I have this problem too

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Chosen Solution

Boy what a Gordian Knot!

I think you'll need to redo your drive here as you've damaged the partition map, OS files (Win & Mac) and what the OS's are expecting as to the volumes.

Hopefully you've backed up your apps & data (Win & Mac). I also don't recommend setting up the dual boot setup any more I've encountered to many issues with Windows messing things up. I recommend you use BootCamp with Windows within the Mac OS workspace or within a VM like VMWare.

You can prove your problem is within the drive config Vs hardware by simply creating a bootable USB thumb drive with Mac OS-X using a friends system, then us it to boot up your system. It will take a bit of time to load but it should come up clean.

Update

How are you installing the Mac OS? Ideally, you should do it from a external drive that is bootable and has the OS installer on it. Do make sure your internal drive is setup with GUID and formatted with a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partition.

If the system is restarting during the OS install process it could be updating your firmware (it does tell you in the process what it is doing) as well as re-starting to finish the install.

If without running the installer the system is winking out on you then you do have a hardware level issue here. Lets then try to figure out why. Download this app: Temperature Gauge Pro. Install it on to your external drive you are using to boot up the system with. Take a screenshot of what it tells you and paste it here for us to see.

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so i have my drive ready and the HDD is already wiped, i have tried installing oSX from it but it starts and then shuts down, is there something i need to do specifically to my HDD for it to install fully?

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Ok so before i do the temp app, ill make a short video of it trying to install osx to show you what it is doing exactly

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhvJgkVg... embedding wont work this time, cause its a comment? well its there, also what do you mean by GUID i am unfamiliar with that :/

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Let me know if skyping would be an easier method to contact,

Skype name: bryan24451

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it looks like you're trying to access the recover partition or the network recovery service if it was setup. Do you have a USB tumb drive which you can plug int a friends Mac? If you do do that and then open up from his Mac the app Disk Utility. With in it select the thumb drive and delete the partitions it has. Create a new partition map based on GUID and create a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partition. Once done, download from the App Store if your friend hasn't already downloaded it the Yosemite OS installer. So you can install the OS onto the USB drive. Once done copy over to the USB drive the Yosemite OS installer so you can use it on your Mac. The last step here is double checking the USB drive can boot up your friends system, hold down the option key to get to the boot menu and select the USB drive if all goes well your systems Mac will boot up. Now shutdown the system and plug the USB drive in your system repeating the same steps. Let us know how it goes.

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could it be my internal drive? like i mentioned above i ended up wiping my entire drive using a windows disk, could that make it so OSX cannot install?

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Yes! This gets int the different low level stuff (GUID) and the partitions and how they were laid out. Which is why you need to scratch the disk completely and rebuild using the USB thumb drive as your rescue disk to boot up with and re-install the OS from.

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