Slow boot up in safe mode?

Why does my MacBook Pro (13-inch, Early 2011) boot up UNBELIEVABLY slow in safe mode?
I've been using safe mode to delete glitchy software (non Apple certified) that I installed, but it just takes FOREVER to boot the computer.
Why is this the case?
Also, shouldn't the computer run a bit faster with only the "minimum" background applications running?
Thank you in advance for your thoughts.

Booting in safe mode is slow because the startup volume is being checked and caches are being deleted. This is not something you should have to do many times in the life of the machine.

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ALWAYS BOOTS UP IN SAFE MODE

MY MAC ALWAYS BOOTS UP IN SAFE MODE. I REPLACED THE KEYBOARD DUE TO A JAMMED SHIFT KEY WHICH WAS CAUSING IT TI DO THE SAME THING, BUT ITS DOIN IT AGAIN. CAN SOMEONE HELP PLEASE?

ACTUALLY IT BOOTS THE RIGHT WAY IF I LEAVE THE KEYBOARD OFF UNTIL THE SIGN IN SCREEN COMES UP. AND YES IT IS A WIRELESS. IF I TURN THE KEYBOARD ON BEFORE I TURN THE COMPUTER ON IT WILL BOOT IN SAFE MODE. IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE THAT I CAN TRY, OR SHOULD I JUST SAY FORGET IT, AND WAIT UNTIL THE SIGN IN SCREEN COMES UP BEFORE I CUT IT ON?

Will not boot up in safe mode

Here's another headache which is testing my temperament to the extreme.
My Mac crashed this morning and when I restarted I got the classic Spotlight in the corner icon. The usual procedure here is to restart in safe mode, empty the wastebasket and then restart as normal.
Unfortunately, my Mac simply refuses to boot up in safe mode! Instead it shuts down. Now this is nothing to do with me leaving on my finger on the button too long or not long enough, as I've done the safe mode restart countless times...the bugger just will not go into safe mode no matter what I try and do.
Any insights would be greatly appreciated before my full head of hair turns into a massive bald patch!!
PowerMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.2)

I just had an issue like this. I was able to boot up with an external firewire drive, although it was a lot of trouble. I think doing an option boot finally worked; holding down the option key, I eventually got to see the firewire drive was bootable, and booted from it.
I put the thing in verbose boot mode (command - v , I think; but please look it up. I have no Mac books at work to check). In verbose mode, you could see that the hard drive could not mount; the OS tried to do fsck, but it failed around 2/3 of the way, and the CPU was halted.
I was occasionally able to boot normally, but never in safe or single user modes; these do a disk test first, which invariably failed.
I could see from the system and console logs when I managed to get the firewire boot going that there were repeated errors trying to access drive s03, the internal SATA drive. The logs on the SATA drive showed huges numbers of errors. At a wild guess, for some reason a lot of sectors went bad all at once. There had been a some erratic behavior before, but I'd put that down to the single processor G5 problems. (these were non video related, just freezes).
Applecare wanted me to carry the huge thing into the local Apple store, but I persuaded them to just send me a replacment hard drive, which they did. The new one works perfectly.
PowerMac G5 1.8 SP (late 2004), 1.42 mhz 14 iBook Mac OS X (10.4.3) both with 1.5 GB Ram

Boots only in Safe Mode - Macbook mid 2007

My Macbook mid 2007 with Snow Leopard will not boot correctly. The only successful means is Safe Mode (key S during boot).
All measures published in various postings have been conducted without any peripheral devices. These are:
verify harddisc
verify RAM
resetting PRAM and NVRAM
A detailled overview can be found under here.
The existing original RAM and harddisc were successfully tested using a second identical Macbook. A new installation of Snow Leopard on the harddisc using the second Macbook was successful and started in this second Macbook as expected. This harddisc was then inserted into my Macbook, but it would not boot. Hence it is safe to exclude problems with RAM and the harddisc.
Attempts to boot with the Snow Leopard DVD (either via C plus boot or Option during boot and select Install DVD) are not successful. Attempts to boot from an external drive are also not successful. The boot process (regular, DVD, external) progresses to different states including grey screen with Apple and frozen wheel. There is no consistency.
From the various postings I have found and studied along with my numerous tests, I have deduced the following possibilities:
There is a problem with the GPU.
There is a problem with the keyboard (maybe someone spilled something).
I have found numerous solutions for "boots only in Safe Mode". All include booting via Install DVD, but this does not work in my case.
I have exhausted all my possibilities. Hopefully someone can provide more insight.

lruetimann wrote:
What I am not able to test is booting with an external CD/DVD drive. However, there is no indication that the built-in drive is malfunctioning.
If you have a second MacBook (#2 working OK), you could use its CD/DVD drive loaded with the 10.6 DVD as the target disk to boot into, as the first Macbook (#1 the troubled one) reportedly cannot see a 10.6 DVD normally.
How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk mode
In your case this would be:
With the MacBook(1) on (Host), the MacBook(2) off (Target) connect the firewire cable.
Start the MacBook(2), hold T key to make it the boot drive. It will appear on the MacBook's(1) Desktop.
Insert the 10.6 Install DVD into the MacBook(2).
It too will appear on the MacBook's(1) Desktop.
From the MacBook(1), select Restart and hold down the Option key to select Start-up Manager.
From Start-up Manager, select the 10.6 Install DVD which will take you into the installation.
If this occurs, then you have booted into the install 10.6 DVD, From there you could try and install it, see what happens.
However, if it does not see the DVD disk, then this would indicate a defect in the logicboard (motherboard), though which component I would not guess.
If it does see the DVD, in Macbook (2) and can boot into it,… I'd be surprised!

Tecra 8100 only boot up in safe mode

I seem to have lost the display drivers to my Tecra 8100.
Since I attempted to use an extra screen which worked fine until I came to boot up the following day when it would only boot up in Safe Mode.
What have I done wrong and how can I rectify it?
Driver detective doesn't work, just comes up as having performed an illegal action.

Lars,
I'm afraid that it seems that Toshiba no longer provide the drivers for the Tecra 8100 as it's such an old computer, around 12 years old. I have been on the Toshiba website and tried again on the site you suggested but to no avail. Sorry about that but am still hunting.
Regards
bfg267

G4 powermac will not boot up nomally unless i boot up in safe mode help ?

My G4 power mac will not boot up when switched on itakes several re boots and somtimes crashes.
Will boot up in safe mode. but this only allows me to use some of the application software i need and not all of them.
Can anyone help I thought it could be the hardisk but why would it boot up in safe mode?

Boot from the Tiger installation disc 1 (hold down 'C' on startup). Don't touch the installer, go to the menu bar and select Disk Utility (I think it's in the Tools menu on Tiger).
In DU, select your internal drive in the sidebar (the top item with the makers name and serial no.). Run Repair Disk.
If problems are reported, run it again until the green message says the disc seems to be OK.
Quit DU, quit the installer and restart.
If DU says there are problems it can't fix, you may need DiskWarrior.
Either way, let us know the results please.
(PS; this is the Intel iMac forum - PPC are next door!)
Message was edited by: noondaywitch

Dual G5 won't boot unless in safe mode post iLife 09' installation.

Alright so a few hours ago I had installed iLife 09 and the computer refused to restart therefor I did a manual force shutdown (by holding the power button till it shut off).
When I booted the computer up it began to load at the "spinning grey screen" then shut off within a few seconds.
I booted it in safe mode to try to fix the problem by uninstalling iLife by removing the files from the applications folder and deleting the receipts. After rebooting I still had the same issue.
Then I booted up in safe mode once more to open up Disk Utilities to fix the permissions. Found a few things it changed then rebooted once more... No dice.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2022959&tstart=60 I took a look at that thread, booted up in single user mode ran the commands and still nothing.
Additional note that seems different than most posts i've read so far:
I cannot boot from another hard drive (internal, external or partition) unless I am in safe mode.

HI,
Can you boot from your install disk?
Insert Installer disk and Restart, holding down the "C" key until grey Apple appears.
Go to Installer menu (Panther and earlier) or Utilities menu (Tiger and later) and launch Disk Utility.
Select your HDD (manufacturer ID) in the left panel.
Select First Aid in the Main panel.
*(Check S.M.A.R.T Status of HDD at the bottom of right panel. It should say: Verified)*
Click Repair Disk on the bottom right.
If DU reports disk does not need repairs quit DU and restart.
If DU reports errors Repair again and again until DU reports disk is repaired.
When you are finished with DU, from the Menu Bar, select Utilities/Startup Manager.
Select your start up disk and click Restart
While you have the Disk Utility window open, look at the bottom of the window where you see Capacity and Available. *Make sure there is always 15% free disk space.* Not enough disk space can cause directory corruption.
Carolyn

No login screen in normal mode boots fine in safe mode

I have got a compaq persaio f700 went to turn it on to normal mode nothing I can hear the login alert but nothing
however I can boot it up in safe mode with no trouble . when I go into device manager i find a yellow triangle next to coprocessor. How or where can I find the coprocessor for this machine I am running vista 32

Hello @biggreg64
To get your issue more exposure I would suggest posting it in the commercial forums since the Compaq Presario F700 Notebook PC series is a commercial product. You can do this here Notebook - HP ProBook, EliteBook, Compaq, Slate/Tablet PC, Armada, LTE
The support page for your product may be helpful in the meantime: Compaq Presario F700 Notebook PC series.
I hope this helps!
Thank you for posting on the HP Forums.
Please click the "Kudos, Thumbs Up" at the bottom of this post if you want to say "Thanks" for helping!
Please click "Accept as Solution" if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.
The Great Deku Tree
I work on behalf of HP.

Why will my iMac boot fine in Safe Mode but freezes on a normal boot?

It is a 17" iMac. 1.83Ghz Core 2 Duo. 1GB RAM. 160GB Hard Drive. Combo Drive with Intel GMA 950 GPU.
I took out the screen and put in in a different computer a while back. This was a working computer before hand. I pulled it off the shelf the other day to get it going (using an External Monitor) and when it gets past the Apple Screen, it goes to the blue screen, and then loads the wallpaper and some of the taskbar, but no dock and it freezes. (This is on a fresh install of Leopard). When I boot to safe mode, it boots fine. I have tried reseating RAM, different RAM sticks, and a different hard drive. Also replaced PRAM battery. Done a SMC reset and a PRAM reset. No change.
Also worth noting was that when I tried to boot my Leopard disc, it would freeze at the Choose Language screen. So I took the HD out and installed Leopard thru my other iMac and reinstalled OS X. Did the same thing when I tried to boot from a Snow Leopard disc.
Ideas??

Hello, in Safe Mode did you try setting a good resolution on the Display?
One way to test is to Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, Test for problem in Safe Mode...
PS. Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive
Reboot, test again.
If it only does it in Regular Boot, then it could be some hardware problem like Video card, (Quartz is turned off in Safe Mode), or Airport, or 3rd party add-on, Check System Preferences>Accounts>Login Items window to see if it or something relevant is listed.
Check the System Preferences>Other Row, for 3rd party Pref Panes.
Also look in these if they exist, some are invisible...
/private/var/run/StartupItems
/Library/StartupItems
/System/Library/StartupItems
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons
/Library/LaunchDaemons
See this great post by themachead on how to list the extensions in Safe Mode with System Profiler then compare to the extension folder!
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10161377&#10161377

MacPro 1,1 July 07 won't boot except in safe mode

Hi everyone hope one of you is a real man of genius. My mac pro started freezing then wouldn't restart, it would hang on the blue screen @ start up with just a cursor. I tried all remedies I know (flashing everything,resetting everything,hardware check,tech tools,disk warrior,ram and battery removal) and same problem. I then did a clean install of snow leopard and then it hung on the grey screen. After many clean installs got it to work in normal mode once but then froze a week later. I also did a clean install of leo and it hangs on the blue screen still. It will start in safe mode no problem. I installed a new hard drive and new install with same results. It is a hardware problem for sure after new hard drives and clean installs and its not the memory, I installed them one at a time and got same results.
I feel it has to be the nvidia 7300 but I have no artifacts or lines or distortion before it occurred.
Please Please help me ! Been on Macs for 10 years and never had a problem. I use my mac for work and am losing $ daily!!! I live in NYC and taking it to apple will be expensive and very painful.
I just want to be fairly sure if its the video before I spend $350 on the ATI 4870.
Thanks in advance and Happy New Year fellow Mac freaks!

RAM has to be installed in matched pairs, not one at a time, one set at a time?
Disconnected all the devices and cables? and just k/b and mouse left?
Pulled all the hard drives out except one?
Disk Warrior etc are current and on a reliable current "Apple-only" boot drive? and that drive system works 100%?
The 1,1 has an SMC button for reset - under drive bay #4 and just above PCI slot #4 at top, takes 5 seconds only to reset.
I had to throw out my Apple RAM (4 x 512) last year as it was beginning to fail. And replaced the 7300GT with 8800GT before they vanished.
OWC sells an ATI 3870 - but maybe those are gone now? and looked to be over priced (was $219 before).
The best way to format a drive is to install Windows and if you have WDC drives, use WD's latest diagnostic utility. It does work, and better than Mac OS utiliities.
Not sure what there is to flash, other than SMC reset and PRAM/NVRAM not much.
I'd install Tiger OEM that it came with if you can just to see how that behaves.

I forgot my admin password for my macbook and my macbook doesnt allowme to go on single user or boot up in safe mode or boot up with the option key all it does is show a image of a globe blinking everytime i try to do something

please people help me i brought this macbook from a friend and now its ****** up its a macbook late 2006 and it dosesnt allow me to do anything everytime i click on a key to go on single user terminal or boot up cd or run on safe mode it shows a image of a globe(earth)

Somehow the HDD is screwed up. Data saving issue is not directly Toshiba related issue and before you spend time here discussing about such things I recommend you to ask someone with good PC knowledge what can be done about data saving.
When the HDD is in the notebook again start notebook as first step set BIOS to default settings.
After doing this install recovery image. After doing this you will have clean preinstalled OS and everything should work properly again.
I hope you will be able to do this using HDD recovery option.
How to do this you can find on http://aps2.toshiba-tro.de/kb0/HTD1303440001R01.htm
Have you maybe created recovery discs?

MacBook Pro will not boot, only in safe mode. Tried Everything!

My MacBook Pro was working fine yesterday. Went to boot it up today, and it freezes on the Apple grey boot screen, will not progress further.
It does however start in safe mode, but will not start normally.
I've tried everything I can find, reset the PRAM, reinstalled OS X, ran the Apple Hardware test which came back clear, I don't know what else to try and why it's not working. It's been fine until now. Please help! Thank you

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It won’t solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
Third-party system modifications are a common cause of usability problems. By a “system modification,” I mean software that affects the operation of other software — potentially for the worse. The following procedure will help identify which such modifications you've installed. Don’t be alarmed by the complexity of these instructions — they’re easy to carry out and won’t change anything on your Mac.
These steps are to be taken while booted in safe mode.
Below are instructions to enter some UNIX shell commands. The commands are harmless, but they must be entered exactly as given in order to work. If you have doubts about the safety of the procedure suggested here, search this site for other discussions in which it’s been followed without any report of ill effects.
Some of the commands will line-wrap or scroll in your browser, but each one is really just a single line, all of which must be selected. You can accomplish this easily by triple-clicking anywhere in the line. The whole line will highlight, and you can then copy it. The headings “Step 1” and so on are not part of the commands.
Note: If you have more than one user account, Step 2 must be taken as an administrator. Ordinarily that would be the user created automatically when you booted the system for the first time. The other steps should be taken as the user who has the problem, if different. Most personal Macs have only one user, and in that case this paragraph doesn’t apply.
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
When you launch Terminal, a text window will open with a line already in it, ending either in a dollar sign (“$”) or a percent sign (“%”). If you get the percent sign, enter “sh” and press return. You should then get a new line ending in a dollar sign.
Step 1
Triple-click the line of text below to select it:
for k in /Sy*/L*/Ex*/{,.?}*.kext; do test -f "$k/Contents/Info.plist" && /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Print :CFBundleIdentifier" "$_" | egrep -qv "apple|Accusys|ArcMSR|ATTO|CalDigit|HighPoint|hp-fax|JMicron|print|SoftRAID|stex" && echo $k; done | open -f -a TextEdit
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Then click anywhere in the Terminal window and paste (command-V). A TextEdit window will open with the output of the command. Post the contents of that window, if any — the text, please, not a screenshot. You can then close the TextEdit window. The title of the window doesn't matter, and you don't need to post that. No typing is involved in this step.
Step 2
Repeat with this line:
sudo defaults read com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook | open -f -a TextEdit
This time you'll be prompted for your login password, which you do have to type. Nothing will be displayed when you type it. Type it carefully and then press return. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. Heed that warning, but don't post it. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
Note: If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before taking this step. If that’s not possible, skip to the next step.
Step 3
Repeat with this line:
ls -1A /e*/mach* {,/}L*/{Ad,Compon,Ex,Fram,In,Keyb,La,Mail/Bu,P*P,Priv,Qu,Scripti,Servi,Spo,Sta}* L*/Fonts 2> /dev/null | open -f -a TextEdit
Important: If you formerly synchronized with a MobileMe account, your me.com email address may appear in the output of the above command. If so, anonymize it before posting.
Step 4
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get name of every login item' 2> /dev/null | open -f -a TextEdit
Remember, Steps 1-4 are all copy-and-paste — no typing, except your password. Also remember to post the output.
You can then quit Terminal.

MacPro 1.1 boot only in safe mode with a non Apple display (NEC 24")

Months ago my original Apple Cinema has broken and I subtituted it with a 24" NEC Multisync LCD 2490WUXi with good results.
After some months, for cleaning purpose, I formatted the boot HD and reinstalled Snow Leopard.
Since then I can restart only in safe mode - the DVD also start only in safe mode otherwise after loading the screen is blank and shows only the mouse pointer.
I noted on System Profiler that no monitor is shown and both the DVI ports of the graphical card (NVIDIA Geforce 7300) result not connected!
I have to thing that such a monitor is not known and therefore, as I don't know where get the original one, can I use the Cinema Display 30" (but it has a minidisplay port not present on my card) and how?
Or it is better the substitution of the card having the minidisplay port? What type is compatible with Mac Pro 1.1 (2008)?
Or, in conclusion, I have to trash all and abandon Apple?
Many thanks for your appreciated suggestions.
Nerion

7300GTs are old in the tooth, there is a Boot Camp related firmware update that you should have seen in ASU.
The ATI 4870 - even flashed PC version - is one option.
I have seen other threads mention 7300.
I'd do the power off unplugged / power button for 10 second "Reset SMC" and see.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1436?viewlocale=en_US

Macbook Pro 15" will only boot up in Safe Mode - Please help!

My Macbook Pro will not boot up normally. It goes past the screen with the apple and the wheel and then just stays white. Also on the screen there are little rectangular blocks going across diagonally. In Safe Mode, it boots up but with little square blocks going across the screen. Can anyone help please?

Firstly, see this article: Mac OS X- What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode? and this one: Gray screen appears during startup.
Secondly, try the following:
Delete caches to resolve some startup problems:
Boot into single-user mode. After startup is completed you will be in command line mode and should see a prompt with a cursor positioned after it. At the prompt enter the following then press RETURN after each commandline:
/sbin/fsck -fy
If you receive a message that says "***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****" then re-run the command until you receive a message that says "** The volume (name_of_volume) appears to be OK." If you re-run the command more than seven times and do not get the OK message, then the drive cannot be repaired this way.
If you were successful then enter:
/sbin/mount -uw /
rm -rf /System/Library/Caches/*
rm -rf /Library/Caches/*
reboot
I suggest you print out the above to be sure you do not make any errors when entering the commands. When in single-user mode you have 'root' access, so it's important that you not make any mistakes.
Lastly, reinstall Snow Leopard if the above doesn't help. This will not erase the drive.

PowerPC G5 iMac only booting up in Safe-mode - Help!

In July of 2005, I purchased my PowerPC G5 20" iMac, 2.0GHz, +260 GB harddrive and 2 GB of DDR SDRAM. It has been running so great that I even upgraded to Leopard OS 10.5.6 in June of 2011.
However in Nov. 2011, the computer would freeze upon start-up, and I would have to hold the power button to shut it down. After waiting a minute I would start it up and the OS came up ok. But each week I had to shut it down and restart a few times before it booted up ok. I ran the OS Disk Utility to repair permissions and it did not seem to make a difference. I also ran MacTuneUp 3.6.0 (purchased it in 2010), and there was also no difference.
Now I can ONLY boot into Safe-mode - Help!!!

Discovered something new!
I left my iPhone connected to the iMac, and when starting up the computer the iPhone started charging. When the screen froze (light blue shade, not black screen), the iPhone stopped charging. (no charge?).
BTW....my mouse always moves when in frozen state.
I also tried starting up (c-key) using OS 10.5.6 CD and computer also froze in light-blue screen. The computer tried to access the CD but then gave up. After leaving the computer for awhile the screen power saving mode was on (screen was black). When I moved the mouse the screen changed from black to light-blue screen. Boot CD did not work. No keyboard commands work. Only holding the power button will shut down the computer.
Help!!

Slow boot up in safe mode?

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