My iMac Won’t Boot

Every now and then, I get a wake up call about how spoiled I really am. There are so many things that I take for granted and don’t realize it until they stop working. That’s what I discovered a few days ago when I discovered my iMac won’t boot and then deciding how to put “my world” back together using a Windows or iMac PC.

The Wake Up Call

A few days ago,  I woke my iMac up, started to check email and business accounts. I couldn’t access the internet. It was pretty early and the kids were in bed, so I knew it wasn’t because too many devices were connected and preventing a decent connection. Everything looked good on my computer as far as its ability to connect. Still, I disabled the wifi and enabled it. Still nothing. I had a lot of calls to do and my spreadsheets are on the computer. I also had a mentoring call with my mentor in about 15-30 minutes. Some files I was going to discuss with her were on the computer.

Frantically, I started to think of solutions because I needed them fast.

I remembered that one other time when I couldn’t connect, and disabling/enabling wifi didn’t help, I restarted the computer. Viola! I was connected. I decided to take that step. While the computer was loading, I decided to log into my router to see if someone blocked my computer’s access from accessing wifi. It was! I couldn’t believe it. Only one other person in my house knows how to do that.

I felt MAD! Why did my son do this? (I totally jumped to conclusions at this point and I never did find out how my computer got blocked from the internet by my router)

Once I figured out that my computer was blocked and I changed the settings to enable access again, I went back to my computer to do what I set out to do in the first place. To my amazement, my computer wouldn’t boot. I tried multiple times. I unplugged USB devices like my external hard drive and my back up drive. Still no joy.

So I was unprepared for my mentor call. The phone calls I was planning to make for my business didn’t happen.

I love new toys. So, I started looking up possible replacement iMac options. My 17 year old son, Caleb started looking up Windows based computers.

Caleb’s search was primarily on Amazon.com because he knew that I had an Amazon card and that I could get 12 months no interest on a computer of my choice.

I chose to look at Mac of All Trades and Apple.com.

Mac vs Windows PC

This whole thing re-opened a can of worms at my house. I love Apple products and my son loves Android and Windows based products. My love/hate relationship is based on personal experience whereas his is based on research from places like Linus Tech Tips.

One of the reasons I enjoy iMacs is that I have only had 2 problems since I bought my used one February 2014 from Mac of All Trades Refurbished Apple Laptops. One time, I had to have my graphics card repaired. Another time, my computer got slow, so I backed it up and reinstalled the OS. I love the programs that I use: Affinity Design, ScreenFlow, and YNAB. I love that my computer, iPhone, and iPad are all connected.

Caleb wants me to get a Windows based computer, specifically an Acer Predator 7 because I can upgrade it, there’s better cooling, the hardware is powerful and up to date.

Whenever I think about my experiences with Windows computers, I remember all the time and effort I put in to maintaining them, returning to factory condition every 6-12 because they would get bogged down and slow, paying for antivirus and malware software, the hassle of Windows updating in the middle of homeschool lessons when I had a scheduled lesson with other people’s kids, and more.

I never had to do that with my iMac. Yet, there were times with my iMac when I was editing a video for a webinar or creating graphics that it would get SO hot. I would stop and let it cool off for a while because I’ve literally fried laptops in the past by pushing them to the limit.

As I mentioned a minute ago, about a year after I bought the computer, I did have to get the graphics card repaired. If it was a Windows based PC tower, I could have purchased it and replaced it myself. Instead, I had to take it in and pay for an Apple Genius to fix it. Caleb says that he read that Apple and their certified repair affiliates have been told to take certain steps to speed up the death of a computer. That’s a scary thought and would seriously damage Apple’s reputation if that is true. I really hope it isn’t true, Apple!

So I enjoy my Apples because they’re easy to use and rarely have problems. In my experience, they last a long longer than anything else I’ve tried while maintaining their value.

Can it Be Fixed?

Each day, I would look up a couple ideas for repairing my iMac and would put them to the test. My goal was to get to the recovery menu. Just when I was about to give up because I thought my computer was toast, or a giant paperweight, I found another set of instructions for macOS Recovery. Apparently, there is more than one set of key combinations we can try to get the menu to appear. I didn’t realize that. Here they are:

Command (⌘)-R	Install the latest macOS that was installed on your Mac, without upgrading to a later version.
Option-Command-R	Upgrade to the latest macOS that is compatible with your Mac.
Shift-Option-Command-R Requires macOS Sierra 10.12.4 or later	Install the macOS that came with your Mac, or the version closest to it that is still available.

The key combinations that ended up working for my computer was Option-Command-R. Command (⌘)-R did absolutely nothing. (The rest of the instructions I followed to fix my iMac are on Apple’s website.)

It is very likely that I will still need to buy a computer in the near future. How can you help? I’d like to know which computer you would get. It could be either of the following computers or another one altogether.

Acer Predator 17 Gaming Laptop