[SOLVED] 2008 iMac - broken hard drive - need to reinstall Mac OS X on an external hard drive.

[UltraFireFX]

I've been given a 2008 iMac (Apple's site said it was from 2008), however, it seems to have a broken hard drive, I've been trying to install mac to an external hard drive and get it to boot of of that for a few weeks now with no luck, any ideas?

 

[McHenryB]

What errors do you get when you try to install OS X? Where did you get the install media from? Is it designed for your model of Mac, or a retail version?

It is possible that the original problem isn't a broken hard drive but a fault with the motherboard.

 

[Tradesman1]

What errors do you get when you try to install OS X? Where did you get the install media from? Is it designed for your model of Mac, or a retail version?

It is possible that the original problem isn't a broken hard drive but a fault with the motherboard.

_______________

+1 Could be a lot of things, have you tried different cables?

 

[BadAsAl]

First off, try the suggestions here: http://www.macworld.com/article/2018853/when-good-macs-go-bad-steps-to-take-when-your-mac-wont-start-up.html

If you want to know if the hard drive is bad, easiest way is to pull it from the iMac, put it into an external USB hard drive enclosure and then try to boot the iMac with it plugged in. If you hold Option after the chime it should show you the USB drive and you can select it and see if it boots. If it does, then it is likely the cable that connects the hard drive to the logic board. If it doesn't boot then it is either a bad drive or a corrupted OSX install.

If you have a running Mac to work from, you can clone its drive to an external hard drive using SuperDuper and then use that to boot the iMac. If it boots then you can be fairly sure the iMac came with a bad drive and you need to replace it.