IMac – Late 2010 iMac getting quarter way in booting then turning off

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Late 2010 iMac getting quarter way through booting then turning off

Ok – first things first, apologies for a long post – I have lots of details about this issue.

Context:

As far as I can remember, about a couple of weeks ago I was working on my iMac (Late 2010, I believe running High Sierra) and it got stuck and froze (the spinning rainbow wheel of doom).

I waited for about 5 minutes then force shut down the iMac using the Power button. From there, the iMac simply refused to start up. It would get halfway through a very slow boot up – i.e. loading bar gets halfway – then simply turn off and die.

Here is what I have tried, and the various results for each:

My attempts:

  1. Safe Mode – I attempted to boot into Safe Mode by holding shift when I turned the computer on. Unfortunately it simply doesn't get to Safe Mode, the iMac turns off half way.

  2. Recovery Mode – I attempted to boot into Recovery Mode by holding Cmd + R and succeeded, but when I attempted to perform first-aid on the drive, I got this:

Recovery Mode Results

  1. Booting into a different drive – I only have the recovery drive separate, so same result as (2).

  2. Performed Apple Diagnostics (on my iMac known as Apple Hardware Test) by holding D on startup. I ended up with error code -3403D.

  3. Reset NVRAM multiple times by pressing Option + Cmd + P + R – no change.

  4. Reset SMC multiple times by unplugging. No change.

  5. Booted into Verbose Mode – everything went smoothly until it got to checking the Catalog File, where it stopped, before spewing an error message and shutting down after 3 seconds.

  6. Booted into Single Boot Mode by holding Cmd + S on startup and typing fsck -fy. I repeated this over and over but it didn't say anything different, just that the drive couldn't be verified completely.

Question:

I'm aware there may be ways to fix this by reinstalling MacOS. I'm also aware that this could be a hard drive issue, however, I'd like to exhaust all other options before I consider that. Are there any other ways anybody knows hot to fix this?

Note:

I'd like to note that now, a few weeks after the initial issue the iMac only makes it quarter way through the boot before turning off.

I'd also like to note that I have seen these websites:

https://www.stellarinfo.com/blog/solved-macbook-pro-booting-stuck-halfway/

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8464773

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8381789

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7051661

https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/218110/Why+does+my+iMac+shutdown+halfway+through+loading+on+startup

iMac gets stuck halfway through boot

But nothing has worked. Can the Apple Stack Exchange Community help me better?

Thanks!

Best Answer

I've seen this issue quite a few times before. For me, I booted into Single Boot Mode by holding Cmd + S on startup and typing fsck -fy. Let that process run and keep repeating it over and over until it says the volume is ok.

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