Imac (06) taking 'years' to boot

I have just done a clean install of snow leopard but now the imac is taking ages to boot and when it does boot it is sooo slow it is unusable.
I have tried resetting the PRAM & SMC which has made no difference...
Checked the permissions on the HD & done a repair - no problems there.
Please help!!
Josh

Josh,
Try opening System Preferences, Startup Disk, then select the disk you want the system to start from, the click Restart to test it.
Regards,
Roger

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My 2009 24" iMac, taking forever to boot...help!

I need help and some advice on my 24" (2009) iMac running OS 10.7, my computer is taking forever to boot up. I was downloading MS Word 2011 via wi fi and then it froze. I shut the computer down by pressing the power button and restarted the iMac up again, the chime came on and the Apple logo is up with the wheel turning, I thought it was booting up...Well an hour has passed and the the screen with the Apple logo and wheel is still turning! I shut down the computer again and power it up again while holding down the Option key. Two icons came up, one for he HD and the other Recovery HD...I click the Recovery and select Disk Utility. I then select the Mac HD and clicked Repair Disk. After it went through that process of repairing, I then selected Repair Disk Permission. After that was done, I selected Restart from the Apple icon on the upper left corner. Again the Apple chimed....the screen and Apple icon and wheel is still spinning...No good the same screen with Apple icon and wheel continued to spin and nothing else is happening. Hope someone can help me out. Thanks.

As a test you could try booting with the install disk that came with the iMac (disk in drive and startup holding down the 'C' key). If it boots it's likely a good sign that it's an OS rather than hardware problem and that Eric Ross's suggestion of re-installing the OS is the next step.
If you haven't got a back up (hope you have) you can re-install using the Recovery HD but it would mean re-downloading Lion (you don't have to pay again).

I have late 2006 iMac 24" and I cannot boot it up. I have tried everything but it will only come up in safe boot. I can, at last, boot up on the option key and it now gives me the option of the Recover HD but when I select this, it still won't boot up?

When I select the Recovery drive it tries and then I can't get further than a white screen. My curser so has 2 columns of marks like a horizontal barcode. I think it's a software problem. When I boot up in safe boot, I have run the disc utility and it says the disc is fine and I have run the repair permissions but it makes no difference.

Thanks AAndy but I had read all of that and tried everything but I have no disks as I upgraded from Snow Leopard over the internet. I have my Snow Leapard box but the disk is missing so I can't use that and anyway, I can only boot up in safe boot so it wouldn't recognise the superdrive. I had a copy of the recovery on a flash but it doesn't recognise that. I have redownloaded it but cannot get it onto an external because of safe boot. I have done the following
Reset the PRam, reset the desktop.
Tried the D key - no responce
Tried opt D and Command D - no responce
Comant R, jusr R and opt R - no responce
By no responce, I mean that the wheel goes round under the apple and then it goes white - and stays like that.
The only thing that I can do, is to boot up on the option key when it give me a choice of drive. If I select Recover, wheel turns under apple - white wcreen
If I boot up on the shift key, it boots into safe mode and there it stays, quite happy surfing the internet and playing stupid Facebook games, so long as I don't want to use any search engines (none of which work (not finder, not mail, not anything) and then after a few hours of forgotton pleasure, it crashes!
The only thing I can think of to do is to redownload Lion - it appears in my purchased account in the App Store but, Sod's law, our satellite internet is not working and I don't think my phone account has enough MBs - anyone know how many Lion is?
I can't backup because I can't use an external drive and old one stopped working a few months ago, so I haven't been backing up and as this is the first problem I have ever had with my iMac in 7 years, I had got a bit comlascent! However, I am pretty certain that I can re-install Lion without wiping my hard drive - I have done it years ago with an older system and an older Mac.
Do you think that downloading Lion again and re-installing it will help? Does anyone else have any suggestions?
Thanks for responding so far.

I had this imac 27" two years ago,updated to snow leopard 10.6.8 and suddenly the imac shut down and able to start again from the beggining,i had the leopard 10.5.8 and my problem is i cannot re-installed my snow leopard.Do i have to update my old leopard

I had this imac 27" two years back(leopard 10.5.8) and no problem was encountered so far! (thanks 4that),i always made an update as far to snow leopard 10.6.8. Unfortunately when i did some application /downloading,the system was off and when i turn it On the logo of an apple only came.So what i did is to start all over again,now i am two years old back with Leo-10.5.8,My problem is i cannot install my snow leopard,it reads that i have to clean tha disc which i did and thru utility disc.Any help please and i really appreciate to every1 helping me to solve the problem.I will keep in touch.
Many thanks! - Angel

BTW,I purchased the SL by retail and originally installed for the first time in my IMAC 27" ,unfortunately during the upgrading of the system,suddenly it was totally gray.then off as it killed my imac.i switch it On but only the apple logo came and waiting for so long.I tried to start from the very beginning,installed the DVD installation that was originally came from imac..it works and i have now the latest version of Leopard 10.5.6...then .8 thru updates. My problem is i cannot re-install my SNOW LEOPARD that i purchased from retail store..proceeded to install in my imac but everytime it ends with 'FAILED-pls clean the disc" i did the cleaning but still the same,:installed failed!-The installer could not copy the necessary support file",i tried booting from the disc holding C down but no luck at all. Anybody can help me please. Many thanks ..

My newest iMac from a year ago is showing signs of slowing down its processing capability. Notice it especially in Aperture where I get the whirling dervish thing sometimes for a minute or more and once it crashed. Is there a way to "clean up the system"?

My newest iMac from a year ago is getting very sluggish. I notice it particularly in Aperture. I get the whirling dervish thing going on an operation sometimes for many seconds, even a minute or more and once it just crashed and I had to restart with the button. So I'm wondering if there is some way to "clean up the system" that is built into the iMac or if there is a reliable app I can obtain that will clean things up. I'm supposed to have a super fast processor in this version of iMac and lots of hard drive space and RAM. What gives? Any suggestions?

Things You Can Do To Resolve Slow Downs
If your computer seems to be running slower here are some things you can do:
Start with visits to:     OS X Maintenance - MacAttorney;
                                  The X Lab: The X-FAQs;
                                  The Safe Mac » Mac Performance Guide;
                                  The Safe Mac » The myth of the dirty Mac;
                                  Mac maintenance Quick Assist.
Boot into Safe Mode then repair your hard drive and permissions:
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions Pre-Lion
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
Repair the Hard Drive - Lion/Mountain Lion/Mavericks
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the Utilites Menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD disk icon and click on the arrow button below.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported, then click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
Restart your computer normally and see if this has helped any. Next do some maintenance:
For situations Disk Utility cannot handle the best third-party utility is Disk Warrior; DW only fixes problems with the disk directory, but most disk problems are caused by directory corruption; Disk Warrior 4.x is now Intel Mac compatible.
Note: Alsoft ships DW on a bootable DVD that will startup Macs running Snow Leopard or earlier. It cannot start Macs that came with Lion or later pre-installed, however, DW will work on those models.
Suggestions for OS X Maintenance
OS X performs certain maintenance functions that are scheduled to occur on a daily, weekly, or monthly period. The maintenance scripts run in the early AM only if the computer is turned on 24/7 (no sleep.) If this isn't the case, then an excellent solution is to download and install a shareware utility such as Macaroni, JAW PseudoAnacron, or Anacron that will automate the maintenance activity regardless of whether the computer is turned off or asleep. Dependence upon third-party utilities to run the periodic maintenance scripts was significantly reduced since Tiger. These utilities have limited or no functionality with Snow Leopard or later and should not be installed.
OS X automatically defragments files less than 20 MBs in size, so unless you have a disk full of very large files there's little need for defragmenting the hard drive.
Helpful Links Regarding Malware Protection
An excellent link to read is Tom Reed's Mac Malware Guide.
Also, visit The XLab FAQs and read Detecting and avoiding malware and spyware.
See these Apple articles:
          Mac OS X Snow Leopard and malware detection
          OS X Lion- Protect your Mac from malware
          OS X Mountain Lion- Protect your Mac from malware
          About file quarantine in OS X
If you require anti-virus protection I recommend using VirusBarrier Express 1.1.6 or Dr.Web Light both from the App Store. They're both free, and since they're from the App Store, they won't destabilize the system. (Thank you to Thomas Reed for these recommendations.)
Troubleshooting Applications
I recommend downloading a utility such as TinkerTool System, OnyX, Mavericks Cache Cleaner, or Cocktail that you can use for removing old log files and archives, clearing caches, etc. Corrupted cache, log, or temporary files can cause application or OS X crashes as well as kernel panics.
If you have Snow Leopard or Leopard, then for similar repairs install the freeware utility Applejack. If you cannot start up in OS X, you may be able to start in single-user mode from which you can run Applejack to do a whole set of repair and maintenance routines from the command line. Note that AppleJack 1.5 is required for Leopard. AppleJack 1.6 is compatible with Snow Leopard. Applejack does not work with Lion and later.
Basic Backup
For some people Time Machine will be more than adequate. Time Machine is part of OS X. There are two components:
1. A Time Machine preferences panel as part of System Preferences;
2. A Time Machine application located in the Applications folder. It is
    used to manage backups and to restore backups. Time Machine
    requires a backup drive that is at least twice the capacity of the
    drive being backed up.
Alternatively, get an external drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
1. Carbon Copy Cloner
2. Get Backup
3. Deja Vu
4. SuperDuper!
5. Synk Pro
6. Tri-Backup
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files. For help with using Time Machine visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine.
Referenced software can be found at MacUpdate.
Additional Hints
Be sure you have an adequate amount of RAM installed for the number of applications you run concurrently. Be sure you leave a minimum of 10% of the hard drive's capacity as free space.
Add more RAM. If your computer has less than 2 GBs of RAM and you are using OS X Leopard or later, then you can do with more RAM. Snow Leopard and Lion work much better with 4 GBs of RAM than their system minimums. The more concurrent applications you tend to use the more RAM you should have.
Always maintain at least 15 GBs or 10% of your hard drive's capacity as free space, whichever is greater. OS X is frequently accessing your hard drive, so providing adequate free space will keep things from slowing down.
Check for applications that may be hogging the CPU:
Pre-Mavericks
Open Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder. Select All Processes from the Processes dropdown menu. Click twice on the CPU% column header to display in descending order. If you find a process using a large amount of CPU time (>=70,) then select the process and click on the Quit icon in the toolbar. Click on the Force Quit button to kill the process. See if that helps. Be sure to note the name of the runaway process so you can track down the cause of the problem.
Mavericks and later
Open Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder. Select All Processes from the View menu. Click on the CPU tab in the toolbar. Click twice on the CPU% column header to display in descending order. If you find a process using a large amount of CPU time (>=70,) then select the process and click on the Quit icon in the toolbar. Click on the Force Quit button to kill the process. See if that helps. Be sure to note the name of the runaway process so you can track down the cause of the problem.
Often this problem occurs because of a corrupted cache or preferences file or an attempt to write to a corrupted log file.

Imac (slot loading) won't boot from CD

Hello,
My imac (350 MHz G3 blue coloured) does not want to boot from a CD. I need to erase the hard drive with the Disk Utility but it will not start up from the CD. I held down the "C" key at startup and it keeps flashing the question mark symbol at the grey screen. What can I do?
Can I use open firmware commands? I already tried reset-nvram and reset-all but that didn't work.
You see I better give the background info here:
I removed the original 9 GIG hard drive and replaced it with a blank 80 GIG drive. I thought I could then format it from a startup CD and then reinstall the OS. No luck. It doesn't boot at all from the CD.
Then I tried taking out the hard drive again and this time I installed OS 10.1.5 onto it from another computer. (It is the only appropriate OSX I have.) I then put the hard drive back into the slot loading imac and hoped the imac would like it and boot up. Again, no luck.
Any suggestions,
can I use some magic open firmware commands?
Did I not install the hard drive correctly? i.e. are you not supposed to just remove and swap hard drives with imacs? I just followed a pdf instruction manual - didn't take than long.
How can I make this imac boot? (Its stuck on the grey screen with the flashing question mark.
Thanks!

A Jumper is meant a little -mostly- black plug that connects two pins of your harddrive. That Pins are next to the connector where the cable is plugged into. There you have two pins for Master, two for Slave and two for Cable select. You must select Master in a 350 MHz to get the HD working.
Just ask someone in a Computer store to help you with the Jumper.
By the way, my 350 is the only iMac I have seen which doesn't even take a notice of presseing "C" at startup. I have to press the Option (ALT) key and select the CD Rom from the boot up menu. Everything else is ignored...

IMac G3 Black Screen on Boot

So I have an iMac G3 and when I boot it up, I hear the fan come on, the HD boot up and a beep, then nothing. It just stays there. I can put discs in and everything, but the screen won't work (the mouse doesn't work, either). I've tried all the suggestions on the troubleshooting page. Resetting the PRAM doesn't work, using my Rescue CD doesn't work (it's currently running Fedora Core 6 so that might be important), I tried hitting the reset button in the computer. Nothing works. Anyone have any suggestions?
iMac G3 Other OS Fedora Core 6

Well I just received this computer from a teacher at my school so I don't know if the clock battery has been changed in the past 5 years. The computer also came without OS 9 installed. It only had OS X. I did get it to run Fedora successfully once. Then when I rebooted it the screen refused to turn on. At one point I did remove the RAM (it was a trick I learned to help reset the PRAM. Probably only works with iBook's, tho) but I put it back in as tight as it would go (yeah I'm answering two posts in one. I'm just lazy). I figure the RAM would account for the beep but the screen stopped working before that (and if it helps my mouse doesn't work, either. It's an optical mouse and it doesn't come on).

I have a Imac 8,1 That wont boot.

I have a Imac 8,1 that wont boot.
3.06Ghz, Nvidia 8800
I believe i have 2 problems.
First this is what ive already done:
I ran an extensive hardware test, no problem
In disk utility I erased my harddrive and clean installed Mavericks,
Verified and repaired disk, no problems
Verified and repaired permissions, no problems
Disk boots up fine when running on MacBookPro through Firewire
Zapped PRAM/NVRAM plenty
After upgrade I can no longer boot into safe mode, Stalls after 25%
Can no longer use CMD-R
Can no longer use Apple Hardware Test
Doesnt seem like I can update firmware from disk by holding down the power button. not sure im using the right disk either.
These problems probably stem from running complex graphics on a windows 7 partitions I used to have.
     First off I think my GPU is out. I get Thick Green lines down the screen that are not from screen damage straight from startup.
After Chime the apple logo pops up and loads but after a while the wheel stops and the computer will reboot moments after. Im hoping this is a Firmware problem and I dont have to replace my GPU. My computer has booted up with the lines before and I dont think its the cause for not booting but im no professional. Before I updated to Mavericks This Problem already existed. Can a failing GPU cause boots to fail?
     During hardware test the green lines would go away and I would have a clean screen.
I loaded Mavericks from a USB drive from there onto the newly erased harddrive (32 Write erase). Everything was going great until I got close to the end of the loading bar for the setup and it froze. The colors on my screen displayed everything but with the colors messed up into a rainbow oval on the top half of the screen. I rebooted and suddenly I cant boot from anything. Harddrive, Install Disk, or USB
     So I plugged up my firewire and got on a MacBookPro with Mavericks and erased the disk again. Then I installed Mavericks flawlessly and it will boot from the MacBookPro but not from the Imac.
When I boot in Verbose mode I get an error that says
BootCacheControl: Unable to open /var/db/BootCache.playlist:2 no such file or directory
Then
NVDAStartup: Official (im guessing thats my GPU)
and a bunch of SMC:smcReadKeyAction ERRORS
and Sandbox: authd(##) deny file-write & deny file-read errors
Im thinking I need a new GPU but I want to be absolutely certain before I spend anything on replacing parts.
Could this be a EFI Firmware Problem?
like a Firmware/boot data problem from a bad ESP (I dont know what is what really).
If all this is part of the GPU it would totally make sense to just go ahead and replace it if thats the case. But im no expert, What do you think?

Very simple take it to an Apple Store or AASP and have it professionally diagnosed. Anything else would be guessing. Do NOT spend a penny on it until it is professionaly diagnosed otherwise you stand and excellent chance of throwing good money after bad.

I have an iMac about a year old. It has OSX 10.8.3 with iMovie 9.0.8. Is there a way to get iMovie to store and use iMovie Events on an external drive? Raw video is eating up my 1TB internal drive.

I have an iMac about a year old. It has OSX 10.8.3 with iMovie 9.0.8. Is there a way to get iMovie to store and use iMovie Events on an external drive? Raw video is eating up my 1TB internal drive.

Yes, you can import to an external drive by choosing it from the Import Screen.
Once an Event or Project is in iMovie, it is best to move it to the external using iMovie, so the Project does not lose links to the Event.
For full instructions on how to do this, see this link.
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4141

Imac crashed and will not boot up

So my iMac crashed and will not boot. The power will come on and when it switches to the boot sequence it powers off. I bought Black Tie protection at Best Buy but when I took it to them they shipped it to Apple. The problem was never fixed. Apple said it was a software issue to reload the OS. Well i did that and not even a day went by and it is doing the same thing. Any suggestions would be helpful...

I agree with BGreg that you should run Apple Hardware Test , however run it in Extended Mode. If no errors turn up run it several times. It's a lengthy test so be patient. Also here is what Apple says about your symptoms in Gray progress bar appears under Apple logo during startup.
I hope you have been backing up your system, if not then if you can boot into Safe Mode as suggested you should immediately backup using either a clone or Time Machine. That should be the #1 priority to preserve your data.

I am on iMac and taking a quantitative analysis course. I am in Excel 2011 for Mac and trying to access quantitative models in Excel. Can you assist me on where to locate these? I can't find them. Thanks.

I am on Imac and taking a quantitative analysis course. I am in Excel 2011 and trying to access a manu of quantitative models previously located through add ins tabs. I can not locate anywhere. Can you help me find these models?

Try here: http://www.mrexcel.com/

Qosmio X500-128, taking forever to boot also Toshiba service station error

Hi
My toshiba qosmio x500-128 is taking forever to boot up these days, iver rolled back the system using system restore, ive stopped any unessential startup services that i know are not req at startup but the system still takes forever to boot, ive also updated to the latest BIOS etc
Another thing is that everytime i login i get the error that Toshiba Service station has stopped working...
any help would be greatly appreciated

So if I am to do a system reformat. I am no novice with computers but by no means completely efficient at everything. What is the "best-practice" when doing a system reformat?
Burn a reformat disc from the system utilities?
Is there a way to reformat that would install the latest drivers/BIOS?
I am going to have a headache with the stuff on my HDD, eg. iTunes, photos, university work don't think I have enough space on my extra HDD's to store it all then to re-transfer it all back... :(
Lets just say I'm not looking forward to doing it, and I am the one everyone goes to to do these sort of things for, I don't mind if I mess up their computers that much but this laptop is my baby :D

Imac takes 10 min to boot. (most of the times it dosnt even boot!!!)

Yesterday night my imac took 10 min to boot getting stuck at each phase !! left it for the night and turned it on in the morning to find it booting in less than 30 sec !! after which in the afternoon it took 10 min again nd then failed to even boot ,getting stuck either at the apple logo or at the blue screen.
So i tried disk utility from the installation disk nd it said it had an incorrect count of blocks for a file.
repaired it nd it still didnt work. so i tried safe boot which leads to the same prb( stuck at blue screen). nd then verbose boot, it said Disk0s2 I/O error gose on but still dosnt boot. tried disk utility again nd this time it had an incorrect block count error for another file . i shut it down nd left it for an hour after which it booted in 2 min.
Am now backing up all my data.
Kindly help in solving this issue.
P.S have windows installed on bootcamp which is working perfectly. have run the hardware test which says everything is fine and the S.M.A.R.T status is also fine.
Message was edited by: akash_rao94

akash_rao94 wrote:
Disk0s2 I/O error
you could try if DiskWarrior can fix it.
JGG

Does your PlayBook seem to be taking longer to boot?

I learned something new today, maybe others were aware of this, but I certainly wasn't.
Recently I noticed my shinny new 4G LTE PlayBook was taking longer to boot-up: as in 4:40 off the battery and 3:35 on the charger and I couldn't understand why. Then I decided to do a backup of my PlayBook, which I hadn't done in almost a month. Low and behold, after the backup was complete, my boot times were back to what they were when I first bought it: 2:35 off the battery and 1:30 on the charger. I much happier now. Why doing a backup has this effect I'm not certain, but if you notice your boot times getting longer you know what my suggestion would be.
Later, Rob
My favourite show: BB10, The Next Generation.

Interesting...not sure why that would make a difference either.
1. Please thank those who help you by clicking the "Like" button at the bottom of the post that helped you.
2. If your issue has been solved, please resolve it by marking the post "Solution?" which solved it for you!

Imac 7 1 won't boot

My imac 7 1 won't boot up without a cd. When I try to boot it up without a cd it just pops up with a blinking grey folder and a question mark inside the folder. When I boot it up with any cd (mac os x 10.4.10 or mac os x 10.5.4) it boots up and I have to select a language then a message pops up and says "THIS SOFTWARE CANNOT BE INSTALLED ON THIS COMPUTER."... THIS IS THE WEIRDEST THING TO ME: When I hold the power button and option key, I no longer sees MACINTOSH HD, it just shows the blinking grey folder. I said I no longer see Macintosh HD, is because there was a time when it was actually there. Macintosh HD also isn't in my startup disk as it suppose to be. When I use the disk utility on either cd, i actually see Macintosh HD....SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME, I'M NOT A MAC USER BUT A WINDOWS....I JUST WANTED TO TRY MAC OUT AND SO FAR ITS SO BAD.....

The 7,1 iMac is a mid-2007, 24 inch (can you confirm that's correct?), which came with OS 10.4.10 originally, so you seem to have the correct disks. It also sounds like you are able to boot from a CD successfully, and the fact that you can then see the HD icon is a good sign. It may be that Disk Utility can repair it, I would try that and report what DI tells you.
However, do you have a back up of files from this disk? Before doing anything else you should try to rescue any critical files from it. An external drive would be very useful for this if you don't have one already.
This machine is also user-repairable (I've replaced an internal hard-drive on this machine myself, tricky but not impossible!), or you could have a repair shop do it for several hundred $. Its also the case that you could just buy an external drive, load a new system on it and never replace the internal drive. This would be much cheaper and easier, cost depends on how much space you want and the quality of the drive, but for $100 you could have a much larger drive than what you have currently (probably a 320 or 500MB).

Imac (06) taking 'years' to boot

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