Black iMac Screen

If you've got an iMac "DV" and your screen dies, you can use the (hidden) built-in video-out to use the iMac to get your data back. To tell if you have one of the ones with a video port out of the back, just look for an oval-shaped removable plastic grill on the bottom rear of the iMac— if you don't have this removable grill, you don't have one. Under this grill you will find a standard VGA port.

My client's iMac (running Mac OS 9) was working great when I had to shut it down to plug and move some external hard drives. When I turned it back on, it made all of the right noises, but the screen stayed black. It even showed up on the network. Zapping the PRAM didn't work. So I grabbed a VGA monitor and plugged it in to the rear video-port. Bingo, there was the iMac screen patiently waiting to be seen.

The iMac is pretty much worthless as a workstation now, but as a small fileserver it's fine. So we installed Timbuktu on it and can use that to do minor updates and maintenance as needed.