OS X Mountain Lion: Reinstall OS X and other solutions to frozen iMac

7/20/14

Maybe this would have helped the other 2 times but I had a similar experience this morning.  Last night I had to Force Quit BookWright and instead of reopening it, I shut down the computer and when I started it up this morning it wouldn't boot.  It wouldn't even let me get to the point to reinstall the OS.  It was showing that I needed new batteries for my keyboard/mouse.  I recently replaced the mouse batteries but maybe the reason I couldn't get to the reboot was because the keyboard wasn't working. While I was replacing the batteries and seeing what I could do, I used my laptop to look up why I couldn't get the iMac to boot.  I came across this http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570 and it did the trick.

At first I tried the Soft Boot by holding down the shift key and then it went back to the gray screen with the apple and spinning globe so I shut it off to try the boot where I could see what was going on by holding Shift-Command-V during start up. I liked this much better because it wasn't just looking at a screen, you saw words on what looked like an old DOS type screen.

In reading some of the print out I realized I left the speaker plugged in and quickly whipped it out.  Then a soft reboot - YEA!!  Then a normal restart and I'm back in business.






7/3/14
Thanks to BookWright and maybe my being on it for too long at a time, I've had to reinstall OS X twice in less than 24 hours.  Thought I better put these instructions here in case I forget.



http://support.apple.com/kb/PH10763

You can use the built-in recovery disk to install a new copy of OS X while keeping your files and user settings intact.

Important: You need to be connected to the Internet to reinstall OS X.

1. Choose Apple menu > Restart. Once your Mac restarts (and the gray screen appears), hold down the Command (⌘) and R keys.
2. If you’re not connected to the Internet, choose a network from the Wi-Fi menu (in the top-right corner of the screen).
3. Select Reinstall OS X, and then click Continue.
4. Follow the onscreen instructions. In the pane where you select a disk, select your current OS X disk (in most cases, it is the only one available).
5. To start the installation, click Install.

You can also create an external recovery disk. For more information, see this Apple Support article:

About Recovery Disk Assistant