Try booting from a startup disc to verify a hard drive problem. Sent from my iPhone On Apr 27, 2010, at 2:03 PM, Paul Thomas <paul_thomas@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > My recently acquired second hand computer, a 20" iMac running under > OSX 10.4.11, has just developed, after a few months, an annoying > startup problem: > > --- Manage your account options at //www.freelists.org/list/muglo