Startup Disk is showing OS X Server - may be causing boot problems

I have never installed OS X Server, and recently, I have been having issues with the booting up, and the only way to get it to boot is by holding down option and selecting my boot drive which contains OS X 10.8.2 - not the server version. If I boot up without selecting that manually, the boot hangs on the Apple logo screen, with the spinning icon, perpetually spinning. I've noticed since this issue started, that my boot drive is showing OS X Server, 10.8.2 in the Startup Disk preference panel.
I've repaired the drive using the Recovery Mode - it found no issues, coincidentally. And I haven't seen a solution for this.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi,
I would try a PRAM reset.
Shut down the computer.
Restart it holding down Apple/CMD ( or ⌘)+ALT( ⌥)+P+R Keys until you have heard three Start Up Bongs.
It may also pay to create another Mac User Account if you don't already have one to see if the same thing applies there.
7:05 PM Monday; February 25, 2013
Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"
 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Similar Messages

My startup disk is showing full.

I ran omnidisk sweeper and it shows I only have 39GB of used space. However, when I check the info on the startup disk it shows that I only have 300mb-5GB left depending on the day. I have deleted all unnecessary files that I can. I can't really find anything else to delete. I only have a couple programs installed that are pretty basic like word and excel. Any thoughts?

Update to the full startup disk problem. I deleted a bunch of redundant files on the startup disk and was able to free up space to about 15GB. When I got home from work today without touching the computer the available space dropped down to 1GB with the warning again that my startup disk is full. I haven't installed anything new or even used the thing since yesterday. This problem is baffling me. Any info will help.

HT3680 Hi,A message on my computer keeps coming saying my startup disk is full.what can I do to solve this problem??

Hi,A message on my computer keeps coming saying my startup disk is full.what can I do to solve this problem??

You need a minimum of 5GB free space, and typically you need about 15% free space.
Your Mac needs adequate hard drive space to operate normally. A low amount of RAM requires more drive space for Virtual Memory’s swap files. Problems from insufficient RAM and free hard disk space are discussed in this link http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/lackofram.html
Look at these links.
Where did my disk space go?
http://www.macfixitforums.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=Forum38&Number=770243
Download & use *WhatSize* described in this link or Disk Inventory X @ http://www.derlien.com/
Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/freeingspace.html
Amazing Disappearing Drive Space
http://www.pinkmutant.com/articles/TigerMisc.html
Increase HD Free Space by using Monolingual @ http://monolingual.sourceforge.net/
How to free up my disk space
http://www.macmaps.com/diskfull.html
Where Did My Disk Space Go?
http://www.macfixitforums.com/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/770243/site_id/ 1
 Cheers, Tom

Startup Disk Full shows up

Dear Sir,
Please help me to solve this problem,
My Macbook Pro shows some errors 'Startup Disk Full',
and the bad thing is,it shows after i on my Macbook and the popup comes up before i can entering the menu,
So what should i do now?

It's after 2am her in the US.
Can you start up in safe mode? If so, empty your trash if there is anything in there. Also, start deleting some files or transfer them to an external disk.
Mac OS X 10.6: Starting up in safe mode
Mac OS X: What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode?
Mac OS X: Starting up in Safe Mode
Going to bed now. The night owls will need to take over from here if you need further help.

Startup Disks Not Showing

I'm running 10.4.11 on an iMac with one internal drive. I have 2 external firewire drives connected both with boot partitions running 10.3.8 so I can use NetRestore to clone our lab. The problem is that when I select "startup disk" from the system prefs only the internal drive shows up even though both of the external partitions are mounted. I tried this with a different external on a different computer and it still does not work. I do not know what is going on.

A couple more questions: what kind of external drives are you using?
How did you create the boot partitions and how did you prepare the disks?
- cfr

Mac Pro 4,1 w/RAID startup disk not showing

Just purchased used a 2009 Mac Pro which came without installation disks. The startup (and only) HD does not show on the desktop. I discovered that an Apple RAID card was installed and had one disk (the startup disk) connected to it. Apparently the startup disk had been part of a RAID from which all other disks had been removed. Can I simply remove the startup disk from the RAID and install it as a regular drive? Since I don't have the installation disks I don't want to experiment with it until I make a clone. As of now there is only the single drive installed in the system. The system seems to be fine as reported by Tech Tool Pro test suite, which indicated no problems with any component.
The battery on the RAID card needs charging but after several hours did not seem to be going anywhere. Can the battery be replaced?
Thanks in advance for any help.

Do either of you guys have an idea as to why the startup HD does not appear on the desktop? The battery no is indicating fully charged in RAID Utility but it's still conditioning, so I strongly suspect It needs replacement. Still, I'd like to solve this before pulling the card since I'm unfamiliar with the Mac Pro and if I can get things functioning nominally through menu operations so much the better.
There seems to be an anomaly in the RAID Utility setup since no "RAID SETS" nor "VOLUMES" are listed, but there is an HD icon labeled "Bay1" listed under "DRIVES" with State=JBOD, SMART=verified, Status=Good, Interface=SATA. It's a Western Digital Caviar. The RAID Utility help says that only a single drive can be RAID mode JBOD, but if this drive's status is JBOD doesn't that imply that a JBOD RAID set had to have been created before adding the drive to the set and thereby giving it JBOD status? IF this is so then the RAID set must have been intentioally deleted, or perhaps was auto deleted when other drives were pulled. I'm thinking that the drive does not show on the desktop because it still has status JBOD but it's RAID set is gone. Possible? If so, can I create a new JBOD RAID set and assign the drive to it without loosing the OS on the drive? Can I install a new drive without assigning it to a RAID set and then reinstall after pulling the card or will things get messed up if a disk that was once on the RAID card is reinstalled after the card is pulled?
Thanks for any insights.

Startup disk not show Mac OS

Installed Windows 7 via bootcamp but now when I boot my rMBP, it goes straight into Windows 7 rather than OS X Mavericks. I went into System Preferences > Startup Disk to change the boot drive but my Macintosh HD isn't listed. Screen shot located below. Anyone know how to fix this to get my OS X HD to appear again?

I just successfully installed Windows 8.1 Update 1 on BootCamp on Mac OS X Yosemite. Here is a step by step I just wrote, hope it helps y'all:
How to successfully install Windows 8, or above, on Mac OS X Mavericks or above:
Requirements:
1- Windows OS ISO Image file
2- An 8GBs USB Flash Drive
3- A good Internet connection as you will need to download the Windows compatible drivers for your Mac
Steps:
1- Open up Disk Utility and create an additional partition for Windows formatted as ExFat. 100GBs, or above, is recommended as update to the operating system, as well as Apps requiere space on your HD or SSD [This step can be done during Mac OS X's installation process]
2- Open up BootCamp Assistant
3- Make sure only the 'Create a Windows 7 or later version install disk' is checked and your USB Flash Drive plugged in and click 'Continue'
4- Click 'Choose' and select your Windows ISO Image file
5- Select the USB Flash Drive you will be using during the installation process and click continue to confirm
6- Once done, restart your Mac and hold down the 'alt/option' key on your keyboard to bring up the Boot Menu
7- Select the USB Flash Drive named Windows, not the UEFI Boot
8- Install Windows as you normally would
* Remember to press and hold the 'alt/option' key, and select the Windows Partition, whenever the installation process requires your Mac to restart
* http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/jj945423.aspx
* http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/install-windows-on-mac

Windows startup disk not showing up after the boot camp is done partitioning.

OK, Boot Camp finished making a partition for windows on my SSD (I gave it 30GB), and it restarded my computer. I pressed the alt key so i could chosse the windows drive so i could begin the installation, BUT the option to open the windows drive was not there! The only otions I had was to startup from Mac OSX, Recovery Disk and a USB Flash drive Named Windows(I tried it previously but it didnt work because it didnt detect my mouse or keyboard). I the booted up from mac so i could make sure that the partition was created and it was. When i went on startup disk preferences on System Preferences the computer couldent detect a Boot Camp drive only the main Macintosh HD. What am I supposed to do?
I am using a Macbook Pro late 2013 13"
(excuse my English as it is not my first language)
EDIT: I do not have NTFS 3G or a similar program installed.

a few things
what is your exact model mac? which windows are you trying to install?
i'm a fan of small windows partitions, but 30gb is too small unless you're absolutely sure that you will not use any major data consuming apps like music, video or gaming. also, you will HAVE to disable hibernation and the pagefile (google). the smallest we run is 35gb with 40gb being much better
does your mac have an internal optical drive? if so, you need to burn your windows iso onto a physical disc unless the newer 2013 macs let you usb install, which would be news to me
use only a usb2 flash drive

Yosemite cannot find startup disk

Hi, I have a problem with Yosemite installed on my mid2007 iMac, which has me perplexed. After installing Yosemite I found that on booting, my iMac would not find the startup disk, and shows me a blinking question mark. The iMac might sometimes find the startup disk the first time after installation, but would fail to find the startup disk on subsequent startups. So to get the iMac to start I boot into my yosemite installer flash drive go to the start up disk section in the apple menu of the installer and select startup disk from there, and that gets me into the Yosemite session. Less than ideal.
I have tried a number of things;
A couple of clean installs of Yosemite 10.10.2.
Checking the integrity of the Hard Disk with Disk utility. (it said it was OK in cheery green lettering) I have had an aftermarket Corsair Neutron SSD as the startup disk for 8 months or so, which has been running well.
Checking the hardware with Apple Hardware Test which said no problems detected. I did this as I also had other issues, like beachballs occurring, particularly on the login page delaying login, and a couple of instances of Yosemite telling me that it couldn't shut down immediately because I had a app open, when I had in fact quit the app earlier.
A couple more clean installs, one next to last where even the Yosemite installer flash drive could not see the start up disk. With the last clean install I currently can start the iMac with the help of the installer flash drive.
Googled around, but didn't find a lead.
The only option I can think of to enable me to boot into Yosemite with less fuss is to install Refit, a program that helps people who want to dual boot linux on their mac. It may be able to present the startup disk.
Any suggestions gratefully received.
iMac 7,1(24-inch Mid 2007),2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB memory, 256Gb Corsair Neutron SSD, ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256 MB

The repairs were unrelated. I had a bad logic board and some bad RAM. The hard drive checked out fine.

How can I get my Windows Partition to be a startup disk?

I have Tiger 10.4.11, I had boot camp, Running Vista, Just fine for months.
I recently had a problem, within vista which caused a problem with the hard drive/master boot record which wouldn't allow Vista to boot anymore and actually reported "missing operating system".
Previously if I did nothing, after powering on my MacBook, it would default to the Windows partition and start it up (Vista).
Of course I could change this from the "startup disk" applet from within Tiger or I could use boot camp from within Vista.
I have since been able to fix my Vista related startup issue, however at present the MacBook is booting into Tiger by default.
I can HOLD the OPTION key and select either OS.
From the "startup disk" applet within Tiger, it no longer shows "Windows" as a startup option which seems to be an indicator of a problem with Tiger of how it sees the hard drive and/or partition.
I ran disk utility, no change.
How can I make Windows appear as an option in the "startup disk" applet within Tiger?
I can use Boot Camp within Vista, to select the "Windows" disk to restart from, and that works, but I would like to restore full functionality to Tiger.
Thank you and please advise,
Joe

Hello and Welcome to Apple Discussions ...
You will receive better exposure to your query in the BootCamp forum:
http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=237
Carolyn

Startup disk full error - boots normally but won't start finder

I'm having a problem in which my iMac when it boots gives me an error that the startup disk is full, but other than that it can boot normally and allow me to log in, but after that the startup stalls. I never get past the default "outer space" desktop image and finder never starts, so there's no icons, no dock, and nothing on the menu bar. What's weird is that Safari and Mail start and I can see them because I believe I have them starting automatically at boot. Safari works (I'm using it now to enter this discussion). Mail on the other hand starts but is hung checking for the servers for incoming mail.
I've tried to boot in safe mode (holding down Shift key at startup), but it doesn't work.
I've tried to boot in single user mode (holding down cmd-S at startup), but it doesn't work either.
I've tried to boot from Snow Leopard installation media (holding down C at startup), but it doesn't work as well.
Each time I try one of these alternate boot methods, it just takes me to the normal login screen with the startup disk full message. I click OK, login, and get stuck.
I'm just trying to get the finder started so that I can delete some files, but I just can't get that far. It's strange that the browser works perfectly and internet connection is fine, but nothing else works.
Thoughts? Thanks. - Mike

Hi Lina, and welcome to Apple Discussions.
Safe Mode might allow you to boot and free up some space.
If you have access to another Mac and a FireWire cable, another option would be to use FireWire Target Disk Mode to transfer data to the other Mac and delete it on your MBA.
If either way works, you want to open up somewhere around 15% free space. Once you do that, run Repair Disk: Boot from install disc (insert disc>restart>immediately hold down c key and keep holding it until you see “Preparing Installation”)>at first screen select the language and click Continue> click on the Utilities Menu in the menu bar>open Disk Utility>select your HD in the panel on the left side>click Repair Disk at bottom of main window. Run this at least twice, and keep running it until it says “appears ok” twice in a row. If that doesn’t happen, you may need a stronger utility such as DiskWarrior or if the directory is damaged beyond repair, you may need to reinstall the OS, or you may have a damaged HD (repair utilities can only repair the directory structure, not the HD itself).
Ultimately, though, it sounds like you need a larger HD . . . .

No startup Disk to select

Hi,
I have a Macbook retina13, I installed Yosemite-BAD CHOICE.I decided to restore to Mavericks using cmdR and selecting time machine. After several failures,the startup disk doesnt show up anymore.I cant even reinstall Yosemite because recovery HD is locked.

Hi,
there seems to be some light in the end of the tunnel.
I took the Mac to a service center, they say that all the data has been lost and my only option is to reinstall os. They asked for a whopping 60euros for one hour's work. Might be worth it, but I still have faith in experts like yourselves prior to turning my mac in.
The situation is as follows:
- pressing option upon restart takes me to a screen that offers the recovery HD but doesn't allow me to choose it - saying it's locked.
- Going to the recovery options, none see to find the startup disk
- I created a Mavericks usb flash drive, installed the system (on the flash drive). now the machine is booting from it, slow and all, but it has injected some life. The internal HD is nowhere to be found, except in Disk Utilities. In disk utilities I can see the original (internal) HD with no partitions. In the options, I can read info, verify and repair - although the machine claims there is nothing to be repaired and the disk is OK. In the partition menu, I am not allowed to amend anything.
I would really appreciate your help on this, I await a response

Question mark on startup disk icon

I installed Mavericks yesterday and there is now a question mark on the startup disk icon inside System Preferences. I rebooted the machine but its still there.
Any help?
Thanks.

Question (?) Mark, Blinking Folder, or Gray Screen at Startup
These are related but not identical issues. Their causes are outlined in Intel-based Mac- Startup sequence and error codes, symbols. Solutions may be found in:
A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac
Mac OS X- Gray screen appears during startup
In most cases the problems may be caused by:
Problem with the computer's PRAM - See Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM.
Boot drive's directory has been corrupted - Repair with Disk Utility.
Critical system files are damaged or deleted - Reinstall OS X.
The disk drive is physically non-functional - Replace the hard drive.
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard 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.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
The main difference if you are using Lion or Mountain Lion is that you must first boot from the Recovery HD:
Boot From The Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the 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 and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Reinstall Snow Leopard Without Erasing The drive
1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard 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.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed with reinstalling OS X. Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files. After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.
Reinstalling Lion/Mountain Lion Without Erasing The Drive
Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the 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 and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
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 click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Continue button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

Classic folder not found BUT it os9 appears in startup disk list and boots!

I installed my friends system from scratch it is an old imac G3 with latest firmware updates..
In the end the only way to get it installed the way they wanted was to install tiger and drag the system folder over from the old install
Now what happens when booted to OSX 10.4 "Classic" in the system preferences looks for a classic folder but cant find one.... yet if I go toe system preferences startup There are both the OS X starup and OS 9 Startup disk listed there and if selected OS 9.22 boots and runs fine.
It is listed under startup as Mac OS Z1 - 9.22 Machintosh HD
I have not run software update on Tiger yet so it is probably 10.4.3 or 4 maybe this would help ?
Any ideas why it wont see this as haveing Classic on the system ? It seems strange that Apple wont allow you to point to the correct folder when it exists and boots from it fine.
Interesting enough when I plugged in my external firewire drive (which is where i copied the OS 9.22 system folder across from) and run the system preferences and classic setup it looks and sees the external drive folder as ok to run for classic !
Naturally I have unmounted this as it is my drive and not my friends
thanks for your help

when I open
Classic Preferences, the system looks for eligible
System Folders and lists the ones it has found. On my
Tibook, there is normally only one, and that one is
selected by default. In order to deselect it, I would
have to connect my external drive, which contains (on
separate partitions) three other System Folders
suitable for use as Classic. I would then expect to
be able to choose manually from among the four
eligible candidates, even if one of them were
initially selected by default.
Are you saying that the Classic pane of Sys Prefs on
your computer fails to list any System Folder at all,
even though the one that boots your computer into OS
9.2.2 is present and ready for duty? If so, that is
strange indeed.
mine works exactly the same as your then.
and yes you are also right that it fails to list any system folder as all

Old iMac Startup disk

I have a 10 year old iMac (clear blue box) running OS 9.1. I need to erase the hard drive in order to donate the computer to Habitat for Humanity. The iMac runs great and might be okay for a kid or someone that wants a starter computer. Or maybe it's just trash. At any rate, I want to clear and reformat the hard drive before I dispose of it. I no longer have the startup disks or any way to burn a 9.1 boot disk. Any suggestions?

Delete all the files you do not want. Empty the trash. Write zeroes over all the free space.
I wrote up a quick little applescript to create a file of nothing.
Modify the script to write out the number of meg you need to zero. Run script. Delete file.
I haven't tested it in classic.
Robert
   Run in the Script Editor.
   Click on the Event Log tab to see the output from the log statement
   Click on Run
on run
   (* Use the log statement to debug *)
   -- Write a message into the event log.
   log " --- Starting on " & ((current date) as string) & " --- "
   (* Use the path to clause to create a generalized path statements *)
   --set theApplescriptPath to (path to startup disk as string)
   set theApplescriptPath to (path to desktop as string)
   log "theApplescriptPath = " & theApplescriptPath
   tell application "Finder"
      make file at desktop with properties {name:"zero data.txt"}
   end tell
   set theFullPath to theApplescriptPath & "zero data.txt"
   log "theFullPath = " & theFullPath
   try
      set fileReference to (open for access file theFullPath with write permission)
   on error mes
      try
         log " We got an error when writing to " & mes
      end try
   end try
   set realZero to ASCII character 0
   set theHeader to " --- Starting on " & ((current date) as string) & " --- " & return
   set moreZero to realZero & realZero & realZero & realZero
   set oneK to ""
   set size256k to ""
   -- get 1 k
   repeat 256 times
      set oneK to oneK & moreZero
   end repeat
   -- get 256 k
   repeat 256 times
      set size256k to size256k & oneK
   end repeat
   try
      set fileReference to (open for access file theApplescriptPath with write permission)
   on error mes
      try
         log " We got an error when opening to " & mes
      end try
   end try
   -- The number of meg you wish to write.
   repeat 2 times
      try
         -- write 1 meg
         appendToFile(fileReference, size256k)
         appendToFile(fileReference, size256k)
         appendToFile(fileReference, size256k)
         appendToFile(fileReference, size256k)
      on error mes
         try
            log " We got an error when writing to " & mes
            close access fileReference
            exit repeat
         end try
      end try
   end repeat
   try
      close access fileReference
   on error mes
      try
         log " We got an error when closing " & mes
      end try
   end try
end run
on appendToFile(fileId, theData)
   local theSize, writeWhere
   set theSize to (get eof fileId)
   set writeWhere to theSize + 1 as integer
   write theData to fileId starting at writeWhere
end appendToFile

Startup Disk is showing OS X Server - may be causing boot problems

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