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My friend has a 2008 iMac which ran into some issues lately - was taken to a genius bar and otld the RAM failed, so new RAM was put in. Now, though, we can't get it to boot from anything - HDD gives us the eternal spinning wheel, Lion on a pen drive & SL on a DVD causes the kernel to panic, etc etc. However, it'll happily boot into Single User mode, and the HDD can be accessed that way - we can't work out what's wrong. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

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Who added the new ram? Sounds like its the wrong type or is faulty – Stu Wilson Jan 13 '12 at 17:09
I (pearce's friend) added the new RAM. Its definitely the right type (2.88GHZ DDR2 800MHz) having checked in the Apple store, and with crucial, (the iMac is model no. A1225) Its brand new (delivered today) and seated well (no dust in ports or whatever) Any idea what to check next? – George Pearce Jan 13 '12 at 17:17
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2 sticks in there? Or just 1? If 2 try removing one reboot, and then the other – Stu Wilson Jan 13 '12 at 17:59
just to clarify my above comment (made whilst on the train from my iPhone). I can't see anything wrong with the Genius' diagnosis, however the location of the fault could be wrong. The areas it could be are sockets, voltage regulators, motherboard (defective joint or other component), north bridge, or processor. Anything other than the memory itself or one of the two sockets is a new motherboard as the possibilities are endless to determine the fault at that point. – Stu Wilson Jan 13 '12 at 22:28

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