iMac 7,1 Installed New 2TB HD Black Screen

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iMac 7,1 Installed New 2TB HD Black Screen

I installed a new 2TB HD Seagate in my old iMac 7,1, a USB keyboard from a G3 and a bluetooth rollerball mouse from Logitec. Got a OS X Snow Leopard install disc. After unit was all buttoned up I inserted the DVD, held down the C key and pressed the power key. The chime sounded, there was a flash of light on the lower part of the screen for part of a second and I heard the drive accessing data. At about the 6 min 30 sec point the noises stopped. All I see is a black screen with no sounds as if it were asleep. When I press the space bar it sounds like it awakens to a black screen. I turned over the rollerball mouse to find the maker and the screen lit for a partial second with to what looked like a language choice screen. Then back to black. So it seems that it is just the screen that won't stay lit and the install DVD is working fine. What do you think is wrong? Did I not put the iMac back together correctly?

iMac

Posted on Oct 19, 2022 10:41 AM

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Answer 1

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Johnb-one

Level 6

9,180 points

Oct 19, 2022 11:46 AM in response to dativer

Hi dativer….

no.. probably not… might not be a question of having put it back together correctly… usually Macs cannot downgrade their software ( eg the Mac OS) So if you have Lion, mountain lion, sierra, you cannot go back to Snow Leopard unless you back up your stuff and totally wipe/erase/reformat the hard drive … then boot up from an install dvd or bootable usb stick ( with the Mac is installer on it) … have you tried the most basic stuff first? Reset smc/pmu and zap PRAM 4 times on startup.. as per this link: https://eshop.macsales.com/blog/80731-how-to-reset-mac-nvram-smc-or-pram/… if you hold down the “option” key on your keyboard, it’ll get you the Startup Manager…,and you should be able to put the snow leopard dvd into the drive, it’ll show up there, use the right and left arrows to select it, then press enter/return on your keyboard or click on it with the mouse and it should run…. However, the dvd drive’s lens might be dirty… get a dvd lens cleaning disc ( the kind with brushes on it) and run that a few times in the dvd drive… then eject it, put it back in its case, then try the Snow Leopard DVd in the dvd drive, with either the ‘c’ key or the “option” key held down on your keyboard on startup… am assuming your keyboard works ok

john b

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Answer 2

dativer Author

Level 1

108 points

Oct 19, 2022 1:47 PM in response to Johnb-one

I came back to the iMac after over an hour and a half with the power on during that time. I pressed the space key and the screen lit for less that a sec. again. I have the old HD which I placed into an OWC Drive Dock. The system seemed to be loading. However, the screen stayed black. I pressed the ESC button the the screen that allows users to choose their log in lit up for less than second. Just like when I was trying to start from the Snow Leopard DVD. The last thing I did was clear the PRAM four times. Still a black screen with intermittent lit screen for less than a second when a button is pushed.

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Answer 3

dativer Author

Level 1

108 points

Oct 23, 2022 7:32 PM in response to Johnb-one

john b I disassembled the iMac and found one of the white connectors was not connected. I reconnected and all is well. Thank you for your input. It helped greatly.

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iMac 7,1 Installed New 2TB HD Black Screen

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