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iMac Intel 27" EMC 2309 (Late 2009, Core 2 Duo 3.06 or 3.33 GHz) ID iMac10,1, EMC 2374 (Late 2009, Core i5 2.66 GHz or Core i7 2.8 GHz) ID iMac11,1

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2009 27" iMac - replaced hard drive - won't boot past white screen

2009 27" iMac hard drive quite a month ago. Wouldn't boot. Would try, had the "loading bar" going across the screen, but eventually would show a question mark if I remember correctly. Anyway, chatted with Apple Support online, and they tried a few things and said to bring it in to a store. We brought it into their store, and they hooked it into their system and said the hard drive was bad. They wouldn't work on it since it was so old, but told us to just replace the hard drive.

We replaced the hard drive last night with no issues. Installed a Seagate Baracuda, 1TB, ST1000DM010. Pretty sure the install went great, and no issues.

After installing the new hard drive, I tried to boot with the OS DVD in the drive, holding down option, and just get the chime and a blank white screen. Tried holding down c, and same thing.

Thought the optical drive might be bad, so created a boot USB drive with Mac Os Sierra (will this work with a 2009 iMac?). Tried to boot from the USB drive by holding option, and still get a blank white screen.

Looked around at different solutions. Tried pressing the power button without holding, but that just shut it off. Tried resetting the PRAM? (Option, CTRL, P R) for one cycle. It did restart the computer, but still blank white screen.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Should I try booting in Target Mode and check the new hard drive? It still doesn't make sense to me why it won't show me boot options.

Answered! View the answer I have this problem too

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I can get this answered for you, done lots of them, just hang with me.

First, need to know your Exact machine. The late 2009 will take Sierra, the early 2009 will not.

Did you change brands of hard drive? (Temperature sensor errors).

UPDATE

To find out your exact machine, get the serial number from the bottom of the stand and plug it in here:

http://www.everymac.com/ultimate-mac-loo...

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I used the same brand of hard drive, and temp. sensor plug looked exactly the same.

How do I find out what the exact machine is?

I've done some more work since I posted. I took out the new hard drive and put the old one back in. With the old drive, it will show me the apple logo on the screen, and then a loading progress bar (like it is loading the os), but then it get's stuck and won't start. So at least I know the screen is working. However, even with the old drive in, it will not boot from the USB drive. So therefore, I can't install the new os on the new hard drive.

I was wondering: Can I plug the new drive into another mac as an external drive, and install the os that way? And then install the drive in this machine with the os already installed?

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Did you ever get a solution? I have the same issue.

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matthew1 will be eternally grateful.
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