OS X won't complete boot

My Mac Mini won't complete the startup process. It gets as far as the message "starting OS X" with the blue progress bar all the way full but then stays there...it's been there for the last 3 hours. It doesn't look frozen and I suspect memory issues. As I can't get to the "About this mac" screen I can't tell you exactly what kind of mem. it has, but I believe its 512 with 2.something RAM & 30g hard drive and non-Intel...so yeah, older, slower model but has been working fine up until just a few weeks ago. Symptoms have included programs freezing, not waking or taking forever to do so. I emptied the Safari cache and later read about the activity monitor & how emptying the CPU history cache would also help...both of these things did completely resolve the issue but was back to it moving slowly within a week or two. I also did reset the PRAM as outlined in another discussion but since it went past the gray screen with the logo & spinning gear, I sensed this was probably not the issue and sure enough, there was no change. At this point I figure I need to just wait for it to eventually complete its boot then empty the caches again, but what about helping it to not do this again? Is there something else I'm missing other than uninstalling infrequently used programs, not running widgets, etc.?
Thanks!

Thanks for the clarification, but it still just continues to the"starting os x" message with the blue progress bar. By "old aluminum keyboard" do you mean the flat, newer ones that are out? The one I got with the mini in '05 was all white, plastic and been thrown away a long time ago when certain keys stopped working. So yes, I probably do have the kind that doesn't work with it (I actually kept my old keyboard for a couple of years "just in case" but threw it out in the last year...of course!) The mini doesn't have bluetooth or remote capability...so...do I go borrow someone's old plastic white one?
Also, I installed Tiger when it came out. Should I be using that disk for the reinstall, or the original with Panther on it? I've been using the original.
I was suspecting a virus mostly because I do keep the hard drive with around 10g free, so at about 30%. The only recent difference is that I tried to open PhotoShop CS4 which I installed a couple of years ago but never got around to learning. It told me it needed to be reinstalled as something was missing or corrupted so I closed it and that was the end of that. I've read that it's one of the programs out there that can really deplete memory, maybe it did something when I opened it. But if I can't log in to uninstall it, I'm stuck.
Thank God for my MacBook!
Thanks

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Very sick imac won't complete boot (not a HD problem)

My imac (24-inch Early 2008) is not completing the boot process. After the apple appears and then the "working" pinwheel has spun for a while, the pinwheel stops and never recovers, forcing me to do a hard shutdown. Below I'll list what i have tried and what was the result.
-- My first thought was that it was the HD. It's always the HD, you know? Well, I replaced the hard drive and we're still having the same issue. BTW this means my data is fine. the orig HD is no longer in the imac, and was totally readable by my other machine.
-- I've tried booting from an external HD (not the original drive, hooked via firewire and then by USB), a usb thumb drive (once with a Snow Leopard boot, then once with Lion) and of course the install disk. Displays the same behavior for all .
-- Attempted to boot in safe mode (CMD Shift):
          -- --Displays apple screen with the progress bar
          -- --fills the bar about 30%
          -- --bar disappears and is replaced with spinning gear
          -- --gear freezes, no boot
-- pulled and re-set ram in slots (not original RAM, but replaced w Kingston RAM when I got the machine in early 2008, and there have been no probs until now). Tried switching slots, tried each ram card alone in both slots.
-- PRAM Reset: CMD + option + P + R
-- SMC Reset: Unplugged for 15 seconds, plug and wait for 5 seconds, press power
-- Unplug for 15 seconds, hold power button while plugging in, release power button, press power to turn on (Some other variation of reset I found out there, don't remember what they said it was for)
Verbose mode, shows it stopping in roughly the same place no matter what I'm trying. The same place being the initialization of the network cards. Even tho' verbose says it logs to /dev/console/ there is nothing in that directory for whichever boot drive I'm using (yes, I looked in hidden files). So, I hand copied the last few lines from my latest attempt:
yukon: Ethernet address BLAH BLAH
Airport_Brem43xx : Ethernet address BLAH BLAH
IO80211Controller:: dataLinkLayerAttachComplete () adding AppleEFINVRAM notification
Airport: Link Down on en1. Reason 1 (unspecified)
I have had some verbose logs stopping after "yukon: Ethernet address", as well as other lines that all seem to be related to either one of the network cards.
It will go into single user mode, so i imagine the solution has to come from things I can do at that command line.
I've seen some posts listing those lines from error logs, etc., but they all seemed to be issues with slowing and poor performance (which my mac had displayed prior to death). The solutions, if any, don't really apply to me since I can't boot at all.
I've got to get this puppy up and running for the start of school in a week. HELP! :eek:
Please don't make me go to genius bar!
juliana
P.S. I should note that the OS is not yet installed on the internal drive. After I replaced the drive, I figured I'd boot off the install disk and install then. Do you think it's worth opening it up again, take out the drive, install OSX from one of my other machines, then reinstall? It's an imac, so it's a bit involved. But I can't imagine it would be any different than trying to boot from an external, right?

I have one machine (iMac 2006 Late) that had the same problem. It would not boot from ANY source and all the things I have tried are the same as what you have tried. Finally, after the computer sat unplugged for a week or so, I ran across the web site linked below. They had a list of a number of power up key commands.
I do not know if it was conincidental or if it actually cleared the problem but after I did the Command-Shift-K comands twice, I tried my Lion Installer flash drive, which had never been recognized earlier and lo and behold, it was recognized on an Option Boot. It then allowed me to actually begin the install from the flash drive. I won't know till tomorrow if it completed the install but it is more progress than I made in a month of trying before the Command-Shift-K combo.
I had previously scrubbed the hard drive right before the problem started so I do not know if it would have booted from the HD had in not been completely erased.
Give the Command-Shift-K combo a try and let us know if it works or if my machine suddenly for no known reason, decided to rejoin the land of the living. Like I said I did do that combo twice in a row. I don't know if it makes a difference but there ain't a heck of a lot to lose if you try it.
http://www.jacsoft.co.nz/Tech_Notes/Mac_Keys.shtml

IBook G3 Dual USB won't completely boot

I have an iBook G3 Dual USB 500 mhz. I went to boot it up the other day, i heard the boot sound, saw the initial grayish screen with the apple logo. then it went to a tanish screen with the folder with a question mark, then the folder with the mac face. and it continued to go back and forth with those two icons. I thought it was the hard drive so i replaced it with a good one. But it still does the same thing.
If i try booting while holding the option key,the blue screen that comes up for the boot source comes up. It identifies the hard drive, and if there's an install disc in the drive, it reads that as well. If i try booting from either location, it just refreshes the pages.
Or if i holding the "c" button down while booting, it goes to the screen with the ? folder and the mac face folder.
Any suggestions?

If it won't boot from a known good disk, then it's likely that there's been a hardware failure, probably the logic board. You can try resetting the PMU, via the instructions in this document:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1431
and see if that makes any difference, though it's a long shot. If that fails, then your iBook has probably gone to the "great beyond".
Regards.

New 2010 mini won't complete boot out of the box

Never seen this before. I just unpacked a new unibody Mini and booted it up only to end up in a screen that shows a picture of what appears to be the underside of a mouse highlighting what I think should be the power button, and the spinning progress icon in the bottom of the screen. Powered down, unplugged all hardware except for monitor and still get to this point.
Looks like I get to do a fresh system install from day 1....lets hope the rest of my experience with this machine is better.

Word to the wise, the new mac mini won't boot if no mouse is connected. If you plug in a usb wire mouse, the system is supposed to detect this right away and continue the boot process. Mine won't do this.
Apple Care rep had me try the following all to no avail:
(1) remove power cord and other USB cords. Hold power button down for 10 seconds. Plug it all back in and reboot.
(2) zap the p-ram
Other tid-bit that is good to know. Apple treats the Mac Mini as a desktop which I was told means they do not want to do mail in support and instead want me to take the box to a support rep in my area, which in this case is not close. The support rep then put me on hold to see if they could do a mail in swap out since this did come to me DOA, and after about 10 min they set me up with a new one.

OS X Won't completely boot - blue screen, pointer then nothing

(MBP with problem is 2.0GHz Core Duo 15" MBP. 1.5GB RAM)
As topic says, g/f woke her MBP pro up from sleeping to type an email. Shortly after opening the mac everything stopped responding. She held down the power button to turn off the mac and then turned it back on. MBP loads past grey Apple screen and shows the progress bar for loading OS X. Once progress bar dissapears then nothing, just a blue screen with the mouse pointer.
I have already done the following:
- Booted from Install DVD and ran disk utility. Verified Drive but no isssues. Verified and Repaired Permissions. Still didn't boot
- Booted in 'Safe' boot. Exact same problem
- Booted into Single User Mode and ran fsck -fy, no problems reported. I can browse the drive and see files etc.
- When I attempted to finish loading OS X from the command line I do remember seeing the following error: coreservicesd crashed. Googled but couldn't really find out anything I understood to help.
What are my options here. The MBP in question is unfortunately about 2 weeks past the Warranty date w/ no applecare but she may take in tomorrow regardless.
Can I use a firewire cable to connect the two macs and at least get the most important data off if we have to reinstall?
Thanks in advance for the help!

That sounds like wake from Hibernation/Deep Sleep - there's no "progress bar" with a normal Boot, only a spinning grey wheel then the Desktop appears .
I believe this is the screen he is referring to.
-Bmer
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IMAC G5 won't completely boot up

When I turn on the computer I hear the Apple start up sound but then I get a screen that has 3 strange icons on it. The fan motor turns on very loud and I can't click on any of the icons on the screen. What should I do?

Sometimes zapping the P-RAM helps:
1. After the startup tone, hold down <cmd><opt><r> until 3 additional startup tones are heard, then release the 4 keys.
Sometimes doing the Open Firmware resets helps:
1. After the startup tone hold down <cmd><opt><O><F> until a text screen appears (that's the letter Oh, not the number zero).
2. When you can start typing, enter the following commands, following each command by pressing <return>.
reset-nvram
set-defaults
reset-all
The mac will start normally at this point.
If still not successful, try this as well:
After the startup tone, hold down the <shift> key until you (hopefully) reach the desktop. This start is called "Safe Start" and it will be longer than normal, because Disk Utility's "repair" is invisibly run; it also will bypass any login items. If the system gets to the desktop OK this time but stalls when the shift key is NOT held down, the problem may be some login item that will need to be removed, using the Accounts panel of System Preferences and its Login Items section.
If none of these suggestions work, you may be required to perform an "Archive and Install" re-installation of the Mac OS. This is one of the options presented by the OS installer when you run it, and remember to select "preserve user data and preferences" all your settings, data and added programs will be there, but a new copy of the OS will be on the hard drive from which to boot.
Please post back,
Miriam

Installed Mountain Lion, Won't Complete Boot

I downloaded and installed mountain lion yesterday and after the reboot from the install, it just goes through the first apple logo with the spinning icon, then the apple without the spinning icon, then shuts off and reboots. I'm posting this from safe mode on my mid-2011 MB Pro 13 inch. Everything in safe mode is extremely laggy(graphics-wise). Has anyone else had this problem or does anyone have any advice on how to get my computer back up and running?
Things I've Tried:
Reinstalling the OS
Clearing the PRAM
Verifying the HDD
Turning off all Startup Apps
Thank You

I am also having the same issue. I thought i would be clever and install os x mountain lion but i forget to backup all my data and took me about 6 to 7 attempts to finally install it and now i am left with the apple logo and spinning wheel of death.
I have read lots of threads with regard to this issue so i am really hoping that apple can sort this out because it worked ok before installing os x mountain lion. I was actually thinking of getting a macbook air but to be honest the whole os x mountain lion issue has left a very very bad taste in my mouth and thinking of totally binning everything apple that i have because i can't see apple fixing this issue.......................................

Won't completly boot

My MBP seems to be hanging right when it starts to load the interface to OS X. I get the bottom bar and a mouse but nothing else. I have zapped the pram twice and nothing is changed. Any ideas?
-mx

Well, it turns out I fell subject to the Adobe version cue issue with the new OS X updates. Once I removed Version Cure form the startup items all was well again.
-mx

Clean Reinstall then Quad won't complete its Boot-Up

First I had problems with the Mac not recognising my Sony Video Camera.
I'm familiar with the Quicktime 7 issue, so I did all the QuickTime receipts/QT Fresh Install stuff. Still recognition of the camera was erratic and then seemed to be getting worse.
Next, my new (Feb 28 2006) G-Tech G-Raid 1tb went off the road - erratic recognition and VERY slow (if any) folder navigation - then ceased altogether.
Worse, the Quad suddenly started hanging and throwing up text:
(These are some of the more interesting bits).
System Failure: CPU=1
Code: 015B0930
Unknown Failure Code
Latest Crash Info for CPU1
Exception State SV-0x000000000 (I think).
Backtrace terminated - unaligned frame address: 0X48041EE9
Memory access Exception (1,0,0)
Waiting for remote (something) debugger connection.
(Fans were at full tilt).
Well, I did two hardware tests (at over 4 hours apiece) and nothing showed, so I erased and reinstalled.
I couldn't get the DVD drawer open, so I firewired to my G5 Dual and targetted the Quad.
This made seemed to help but the Quad still wasn't stable, so I did a fresh reinstall again by using the OS X Install Disk.
I ditched all but the basic install option.
Now the Quad won't finish Booting Up.
It gets to the end of the progress monitor (candy bar) thingy and then just hangs.
It'll boot from my LaCie 500 GB HD though - and seems to run OK from that.
What are my chances?
Andy
G5 Quad. 8 GB. 250 & 500 GB Int'l Drives. G-Tech G-Raid 1 TB. FCP 5.0.4 (Studio) Mac OS X (10.4.6) Sony HVR-Z1E. (Please forgive me if I misread your question).
I should add that after the first reinstall of OS X, I updated to 10.4.6 but after the second I didn't update.
ALSO (if it makes a difference) on both occasions, I reinstated my old library files.
I've done sporadic zapping of PRAMS and repairing of permissions along the way too.
I guess I'll do another clean reinstall without reinstating my library files - but without all those settings, I may well lose the will to live.
Message was edited by: andynick

your welcome,
If you keep a clone of your pristine boot drive on a external drive, kept disconnected and in a safe place. Then if something like this happens you can disconnect the boot drive and option boot from the clone to isolate if it's a hardware or software problem right off.
Then you have the option with the clone to repair/recover or simply erase the original and reverse clone if it is indeed a screwed up boot drive.
(actually it's best to have two clones, each staggered a bit in time/updates just in case you hook up a clone to a infected machine and it too gets owned)
Cloning can only take minutes, and you can out to lunch while the clone is going on. Sure beats trying to find out what's exactly the problem.
Visit the free Carbon Copy Cloner forums for details. Search Apple for DejaVu which is a System Preference pane which combines auto-cloning and auto-backup. Clone once a week and backup daily for instance.
Always Erase w/Zero option all new drives, it checks every bit on the drive and maps off those bad sectors which is a cause of a lot of unusual behaviors.
(no comp as usual)

BB Torch keeps trying to reboot and won't complete

Anyone had this experience and found a solution??
I clicked a link from Drop Box to install application and it immediately shut off my BB Torch and it has been trying to reboot ever since but won't complete reboot. It gets to about 70% on the progress bar and shuts off again repeatedly. Tried hard and soft reboot and it didn't help.

When you get a chance, do a battery pull. When the red light goes away on the front of the phone, hold down the
back button the entire time while the phone is booting up. When the boot is complete, the phone will enter safe
mode.
http://btsc.webapps.blackberry.com/btsc/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=KB17877
Remove the app and do another battery pull.
if you can't get past that, you will have to reload the device software on the phone.
http://supportforums.blackberry.com/t5/Device-software-for-BlackBerry/How-To-Reload-Your-Operating-S...
or
force the detection of the BlackBerry smartphone using Application Loader
http://btsc.webapps.blackberry.com/btsc/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=KB10144
Please click the Thumbs Up icon if this comment has helped you!
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My iPhone 5 won't complete the sync with my PC...

my iPhone 5 won't complete the sync with my PC, says "waiting for items to copy (step 6 of 6)". have left the PC and phone connected for up to 15 hours one time, and the status never changes.

I figure it out. Somehow, in my Advanced settings, password was somehow "de-selected" as my Authentication setting in Incoming Selections. I re-selected it, and now everything is back to normal...

My media center M8000y no longer completes boot sequence...I turn on the desktop and sometimes the b

HP Media Center M800y, System # GG755AV#ABA, Windows Vista Ultimate, Desktop will not complete boot sequence as the Blue & white HP screen which doesn't always appear, will give options to either
a).Press F10 to enter setup or,
b). to press f11 to start recovery partition in hard drive that doesn't work when tried.
Can enter setup when blue & white HP screen appears but do not know what to look for when inside.
If I pick none of the 2 options, the screen just turns black with a horizontal line "-" blinking at the upper left hand corner of the screen. Sometimes the screen will not even show the blue & white HP screen and it just stays black.
I changed the CMOS battery and nothing happened except that now the blue & white HP screen with the 2 options appears even less when I attempt to start up... I also tried using the recovery disks to no avail...
A power surge knocked out the power in my building and the computer suddenly stopped working while streaming netflix video afterwards... Then when attempting to re-boot once power was restored, The screen showed some very wierd, almost alien fonts on the top of the black screen that almost resembled Chinese or hyrogliphics. Upon further attempts to re-boot to no avail, I'm at a loss in diagnosing the possible causes or failure modes... Can somebody help me in the right direction???
I'm leaning towards either a corrupted bios via virus, or a fried hard drive or both. If you think something else or this has happened before and anyone knows a fix, I would be eternally grateful for your guidance in resolving this problem I'm experiencing.
Respectfully,
Henry

I would lean more to a hard drive problem.
A quick test is to temporarily disconnect the hard drive - the system should quickly indicate it can't find the HDD, can't boot, etc. You should also have the option to press one of the function keys to enter system BIOS.
If when you hook the drive up again - it starts getting flaky/slow again to do anything - you've likely found your culprit.
-DM (a long-time HP employee)
-DM (HP Retiree)
NOTE: If this helps you or solved your problem - please say thanks by clicking the white kudos star on the left.
If you think this would also help others, please mark 'Accept as Solution' to help them find it easier.

Mobile account won't complete setup, initial sync won't complete.

I'm trying to setup a mobile account but it won't complete the sync process on the client MacBook Pro. Both the server and the MacBook Pro are running 10.5.5.
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Forgot about getting this problem solved.
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IMac won't complete restart after upgrade to 10.5.6

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OS X won't complete boot

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