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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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White screen on boot, no disk showing up, no os

I was given this iMac (not entirely sure on the model, but its an older one) and have been attempting to fix it. I am not sure what was wrong with it at the time, but it currently has 5 vertical yellow lines on the start up screen which go away after the apple logo goes away. I have 2 test hard drives which are formatted to HFS+ and are completely blank (the drive was wiped before it was given to me - and i got the other because they suggested it might have not worked).

I finally got OS lion to install on the first hard drive through internet recovery, but then after using it about 10 minutes, the screen turned black with some faint lines going vertically, and when i rebooted, it went to the apple screen, and then went to a white screen and stayed there.

Every time i tried rebooting, it does the same, where it goes to a white screen and stays like that.

I tried using the other hard drive, thinking the other may have failed. Still, the same issue persists. However with this drive, I am able to get internet recovery to start. But once the loading bar is finished, it goes back to the white screen again. The drive does not show up when i hold command r or option. Only internet recovery shows up. I know the drive is not bad. I also have an install of mojave on a flash drive which gives the restricted symbol if i try accessing. Is there a different install I can get for my flash drive that could work?


What can I do to fix it? Is the mac trash? It was free - so not a huge deal. But I would like it to work! Any help would be great. I have tried everything I can find on the internet with no luck. Thanks!

Update (02/23/2019)

I am able to get linux to boot fine using a flash drive. No issues there so far. Still having issues with the hard drive. Maybe this one is bad too.

Update (02/24/2019)

I managed to install ubuntu on the hard drive and used it for a few hours with no issues. Disk check came back ok and wasn’t having any graphical issues. I also fixed the partitions on the hard drive and now OS Lion is installing. Hopefully that works! We will have to see if the same issues happen again once its done.

Update (03/02/2019)

Its been working perfectly for a week now. I believe the issue was with the old hard drive, and that I formatted the new one incorrectly. Thanks!

Answered! View the answer I have this problem too

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Depending on the graphics drivers Ubuntu installed you maybe only leveraging the CPU's graphics service Vs the dedicated GPU this system has. Which is why it can mislead you into thinking you have a different problem than the GPU board.

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Since you formatted the drive under a different OS, the formatting tool may have used a partition scheme that's incompatible with OSX booting. In order to boot an Intel Mac running OSX, the boot drive needs to be GUID partitioned (not MBR as Windows uses), and HFS+ formatted (HFS+ journaled is the default format for later versions of OSX).

I suspect that the partition mapping a formatting utility puts on a drive is the default partition used by the boot OS, unless you specify otherwise beforehand.

If the Linux tool you're using doesn't include an option for a GUID partition map, you may need to format the drive from a Mac, using Disk Utility.

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Updated the partition, you were right. OS lion is installing now! Wish me luck. Hopefully the same issues don't come back.

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Most Helpful Answer

Pull the GPU and use a hot air workstation to reflow the board.

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Check the model of the system which you can see at the bottom of the iMac stand if I remember correctly.

Sounds like a 2011 27” iMac with the faulty GPU which is common on that model. Not worth fixing and better to replace with something else instead.

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it is iMac "Core i7" 3.4 27-Inch (Mid-2011) A1312 (EMC 2429)

Would that cause the issues I am having with the hard drive as well?

Maybe I formatted the hard drive incorrectly and that is why it doesn’t show up? How should a hard drive be formatted to work in the mac? It used to be a drive in a windows computer. I formatted it to hfs+ using linux.

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Im willing to put in the time and effort if there is a free way to fix it. But if it requires buying a new one then I wont.

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That sounds much like the GPU issue I had with mine. There are actually two video cards in this model. one for low res and the other for high. I think you might find that when you start loading things that require higher res graphics it will start to fail again. Thats exactly how mine reacted when doing the same thing. At any rate, I put together a short video for how to repair it. it does not always work but I found a method that has worked well so far regardless of how hard I push the graphics. I hope this helps.

How to repair video on Mid 2011 27 inch iMac

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Crum fixed his issue! It was a bad drive.

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Crum will be eternally grateful.
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