[GenXer]

I have a late 2013 iMac 21" that's stuck in loading screen. I've already reset NVRAM, SMC and already reinstalled IOS Catalina using MacOS recovery. But it's still stuck in the loading screen towards the end of the progress bar.

Is this an indication of a hard drive fault? If so, what are your thoughts about an SSD drive upgrade kit?

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/...inch/2013-2019

[JasonDot]

The HD is a good place to investigate. Solid state drives are usually a great option, unless terabytes of storage is your need.

What're your thoughts on replacing it versus repairing it?
What is it's weekly usage like?

[infinitekidM2C]

Originally Posted by GenXer

I have a late 2013 iMac 21" that's stuck in loading screen. I've already reset NVRAM, SMC and already reinstalled IOS Catalina using MacOS recovery. But it's still stuck in the loading screen towards the end of the progress bar.

Is this an indication of a hard drive fault? If so, what are your thoughts about an SSD drive upgrade kit?

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/...inch/2013-2019

This happened to me but i had to essentially reformat the hard drive and lost my files. Basically it would start up. Then ________ until it was around halfway, then would go back to sleep. I bet your hard drive says its "unmounted."

Works again though without any purchased hardware.

[GenXer]

I got it to work again. Formatting and reinstalling iOS did not help the first 3 times. I suspected certain sectors of the drive were bad but HD First Aid did not help. I ended up reducing the partition size to 900GB. It's 100GB less than the factory 1TB. Then I reinstalled iOS again. This seemed to do the trick.

I don't mind spending $250 on a new SSD drive but taking apart an Apple computer is like remodeling a house. My old Macbook is 14 years old and it's still running strong especially with a new fan and a new SSD drive. This iMac was only 6 years old. There's no excuse for it to go bad especially what I paid for it back in 2014.