[boboso]

My nightly back up (Smart Update) runs each night at 11pm. This morning I came out to find my iMac locked up (can move cursor, beach ball when over SD app window) and unresponsive, i.e. can move cursor but nothing else.

The SD app in the back up window shows a red header with the comment "cannot prepare Maxtor" (external hard drive to which I back up to).

So I did the before coffee stupid thing, and shut down and re-started the machine. It gets to the apple logo with the grey spinning wheel and then the fans come on like crazy but the screen remains locked with spinning wheel and logo.

I am at work now and cannot be at the iMac until later this evening, but any assistance would be appriciated.