Mac not booting up properly

[Mac Man]

Hi all

Switch on Mac and the system seems to boot up but.... when you get to the log-in screen and choose a user the machine selects that user and then won't load the desktop or anything else. Just get the spinning wheel of death and the spotlight icon in the top right hand corner.

Trying to boot up from the CD and it won't have it at all either.

When I hold hold option down to boot from the CD - no options show up. Also tried holding down X and C as well..


HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[markuswarren]

What version of OS X are you running? What was the last thing you did before starting up the machine and seeing this issue? Did you apply any updates, if so, what were they?

If you hold down the option key and keep it held down when you reboot the machine do you see the startup manager screen (blue screen displaying the bootable volumes on the mac and two buttons, one a right facing arrow and the other a circle shaped arrow). If you do then what, if anything is displayed on that dialog, just your hard drive? If you put your OS CD/DVD in at that point and press the circle shaped arrow (refresh button) does the CD/DVD appear as a bootable option, if so, select it, click the right facing arrow (continue button) and it'll boot from the CD/DVD. When the OS X installer comes up I'd suggest clicking through the language selection and license agreements, and then go up to the menu bar and see if you can select Disk Utility, if you can, run it, and use it to verify/repair the disk/permissions on the hard drive. See if it comes up with any errors and fix them using the Repair option. Hopefully there won't be any errors it cannot fix. Once you have done that, reboot and see if you can login ok.

If you cannot login ok, reboot the machine and as soon as you hear the startup sound hold down, and keep held down the Command (Apple) + Option (Alt) + P + R keys. You should hear a restart sound after a few seconds, keep the keys held down until you hear the restart sound again and then let go. Then quickly hold down and keep held down the Shift key. Keep it down until the login dialog appears.
The login dialog should say "Safe Boot" on it.

Type in your username and password and click Login, see if you get to the desktop. If not, then reboot, and when you get to the login dialog, type in your username and password and then hold down the shift key and with it held down, click the login button and keep the shift key held down until you, hopefully, get to the desktop. This will prevent login items from running.

If you do get to the desktop by doing the above then the problem could well be with a login item, in which case, go into System Preferences, then into your Account and look at the Login Items and note down what is listed.

Typically you'd want to remove one of the items, logout, then normally login and see if you can get in. If not, then you reboot, shift login, remove another item, logout, try logging in again. If it works then the last item you removed was possibly the one causing the problem, so you can add it back in and see if the problem comes back or not. If the problem is still there, keep repeating the procedure until you remove all the items.

If it's still happening then it's not a per user login item, but a global login item, which is slightly more tricky to remove, so we'll cross that bridge if/when we come to it.

[Mac Man]

Thanks Markus

Managed to log-in as one of the other users.

Deleted a file that related to the desktop menu list items (my colleague sorted this out) which reset the desktop left hand list back to default.

This seems to have done the trick. Mac working ok now.

thanks anyway


chris

Originally Posted by markuswarren

What version of OS X are you running? What was the last thing you did before starting up the machine and seeing this issue? Did you apply any updates, if so, what were they?

If you hold down the option key and keep it held down when you reboot the machine do you see the startup manager screen (blue screen displaying the bootable volumes on the mac and two buttons, one a right facing arrow and the other a circle shaped arrow). If you do then what, if anything is displayed on that dialog, just your hard drive? If you put your OS CD/DVD in at that point and press the circle shaped arrow (refresh button) does the CD/DVD appear as a bootable option, if so, select it, click the right facing arrow (continue button) and it'll boot from the CD/DVD. When the OS X installer comes up I'd suggest clicking through the language selection and license agreements, and then go up to the menu bar and see if you can select Disk Utility, if you can, run it, and use it to verify/repair the disk/permissions on the hard drive. See if it comes up with any errors and fix them using the Repair option. Hopefully there won't be any errors it cannot fix. Once you have done that, reboot and see if you can login ok.

If you cannot login ok, reboot the machine and as soon as you hear the startup sound hold down, and keep held down the Command (Apple) + Option (Alt) + P + R keys. You should hear a restart sound after a few seconds, keep the keys held down until you hear the restart sound again and then let go. Then quickly hold down and keep held down the Shift key. Keep it down until the login dialog appears.
The login dialog should say "Safe Boot" on it.

Type in your username and password and click Login, see if you get to the desktop. If not, then reboot, and when you get to the login dialog, type in your username and password and then hold down the shift key and with it held down, click the login button and keep the shift key held down until you, hopefully, get to the desktop. This will prevent login items from running.

If you do get to the desktop by doing the above then the problem could well be with a login item, in which case, go into System Preferences, then into your Account and look at the Login Items and note down what is listed.

Typically you'd want to remove one of the items, logout, then normally login and see if you can get in. If not, then you reboot, shift login, remove another item, logout, try logging in again. If it works then the last item you removed was possibly the one causing the problem, so you can add it back in and see if the problem comes back or not. If the problem is still there, keep repeating the procedure until you remove all the items.

If it's still happening then it's not a per user login item, but a global login item, which is slightly more tricky to remove, so we'll cross that bridge if/when we come to it.