HT201262: Try safe mode if your Mac doesn't finish starting up

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Qubic
Level 1 (15 points)

Q: Mac Pro Xeon w Lion hangs during safe mode boot

Been having probs w Mac Pro w Lion seeming to hang on shutdown/restart. Have 'reopen windows' unchecked in prefs.

 

Was able to run through safe mode boot once but now seems to hang about 20% in everytime.

 

Have had to do shutdowns w power button (I hate that) or /by ctrl-option-command-esc

 

Boot single user run rack -fy says 'apparently ok'

 

Mount -uw / reports removed 10 orphaned or unlinked files and 10 directories

=:-O

 

Hope not anything critical.

 

Any idea or suggestion on the safe boot hang?

 

Thanks

Mac Pro, 2xDual2.66, 4GB, GeForce 7300 GT, 23" Apple LCD, Mac OS X (10.5), G4 Cube, Rev A/C iMac, NeXTCube,PwrMac8500,Quadras,SE30s,MacPlus

Posted on Apr 13, 2012 4:41 PM

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Qubic

Q: Mac Pro Xeon w Lion hangs during safe mode boot

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Linc Davis,

    Linc Davis Linc Davis Apr 13, 2012 5:08 PM in response to Qubic
    Level 10 (207,926 points)
    Applications
    Apr 13, 2012 5:08 PM in response to Qubic

    Can you boot in the usual way (not in safe mode)?

  • by Qubic,

    Qubic Qubic Apr 13, 2012 8:03 PM in response to Linc Davis
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Apr 13, 2012 8:03 PM in response to Linc Davis

    yes, can boot from cold boot after shutting down with power button, but menu initiated restart or shut down hangs mid process.

    Was trying safe mode boot in attempt to clean anything up that might be causing problems.

    I usually leave maching running all the time, unless some update requires restart, or something

  • by Linc Davis,

    Linc Davis Linc Davis Apr 13, 2012 8:35 PM in response to Qubic
    Level 10 (207,926 points)
    Applications
    Apr 13, 2012 8:35 PM in response to Qubic

    Back up all data.

     

    Boot from your recovery partition by holding down the key combination command-R at the startup chime. Release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial.

     

    When the Recovery desktop appears, reinstall the Mac OS. You don't need to erase the boot volume, and you won't need your backup unless something goes wrong. If your Mac didn’t ship with Lion, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade, so make a note of those before you begin.

  • by Qubic,

    Qubic Qubic Apr 15, 2012 9:30 PM in response to Linc Davis
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Apr 15, 2012 9:30 PM in response to Linc Davis

    Thanks;  Had tried booting with just the Option key (only), and tried to boot off the Recovery drive, didn't work.

     

    Updated all backups again, and was able to resintall OS X Lion using the Command-R option.  Nice!    So many times in past 15 years would have liked to have had something as easy.

     

    Seems to have cleared the problem with not being able to complete a menu-driven shutdown or restart, which is nice to have back, dont have to force w Pwr button, (again, I hate that). 

     

    However, attempt to boot to Safe Mode with the Shift key, again results in hanging about 20% in, progress bar not move, 'dial' still spinning, no sound from machine, seemingly no activity. I let it sit there for 25 minutes and gave up.  Wish I had a clue of what I might try from Single User Mode other than fsck -fy and mount -uw /.

     

    Must be something else that is wrong to cause it to hang at the same place during that safe boot start up process, but I have no idea what.  Thought to yank the firewire chain of external drives, any extraneous peripherals, etc, to see if makes a difference, but will wait on that.

  • by Applekid43607 ,

    Applekid43607 Applekid43607 Apr 16, 2012 10:34 PM in response to Qubic
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 16, 2012 10:34 PM in response to Qubic

    Hello I have a brand new (less the two week) old Mac Pro Quad Core Xeon and I too am facing issues with the system occationally hanging on boot up into Lion 10.7.3

     

    Have you tried logging into Verbose Mode and checking out at what point the system is hanging during the bootup process?

     

    Perhaps you should post a log of your Verbose bootup

  • by Qubic,

    Qubic Qubic Apr 17, 2012 5:10 PM in response to Applekid43607
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Apr 17, 2012 5:10 PM in response to Applekid43607

    Had been able to login to Single User (Command-s) and that came up fine.  Ran /sbin/fsck -fy, (if I recall), which I think found a couple of things.  I ran it again.  Then did a '/sbin/mount -uw /', that was ok.

     

    I didn't try starting up with Verbose Mode (Command-v), though.

     

    It boots fine normally, but hangs during Safe Mode (Shift key during start up).  Also has tendency to hang on shutdown.

     

    I have since done a restart with Option-r to the recover mode and reinstalled Lion altogether, but still have the problem with hanging during a Safe Boot, at the same point in the process.  It gets about 20% in per the progress bar, then just sits and spins.

     

    BTW this is a Fall 2006 Mac Pro, 2 x 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Xeon, 12GB RAM.  Lion 10.7.3.

  • by Craig B Luigart,

    Craig B Luigart Craig B Luigart May 14, 2012 10:07 AM in response to Qubic
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 14, 2012 10:07 AM in response to Qubic

    Qubic, thank you for posing this question. Linc's reply solved MOST of mine as well. 

     

    But like you I'm still having failure to complete Safe Mode boots. 

     

    Strange even the same apparent hang point - right at 20%.  Linc any thoughts on our mutual issue?  Mine is a Mac Pro 5,1 2 x 2.93ghz with 12 cores, 8g ram, on latest Lion.

     

    Will come back with the verbose mode boot if that doable with a safe mode boot at the same time - never tried that at same time.

  • by doug gosciak,

    doug gosciak doug gosciak May 14, 2012 5:44 PM in response to Qubic
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Mac App Store
    May 14, 2012 5:44 PM in response to Qubic

    I am having this problem also. Numerous tries to bot into safe mode and it stalls out with 20-25% of the progress bar grey and then all goes silent. The last time I ran Disk Utility and verified my boot disk before safe booting - no problems. My macihine is a:

    * MacPro1,1 - original generation

    * 12 GB 667 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM

    * 2 x 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon

    * ATI Radeon HD 4870 512 MB

    * Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4 (11E53)

    * Boot ROM Version:          MP11.005C.B08

    * SMC Version (system):          1.7f10

     

    I sure wish I could figure this out. Not sure if this ever worked with Snow Leopard, don't remeber testing it, but is sure does not work now under Lion.

  • by Tesselator,

    Tesselator Tesselator Oct 4, 2012 12:36 AM in response to doug gosciak
    Level 1 (70 points)
    Oct 4, 2012 12:36 AM in response to doug gosciak

    . I'm having basically the same problem is Doug with basically the same machine to. processor in my machine has been upgraded the X 5355 and my card is the lower end nvidia card. however in my case I boot from a raid 0 so I have no recovery partition at all. in my case it hangs 20 percent in the same way when using safe boot mode however it doesn't boot at all in normal boot up mode.  when I run fsck -fy it goes through and says everything is okay and then at the end it says "file system was modified".. And apparently mount -uw does nothing thia I can see.

     

    this is terrible because I have a completely unusable Mac now and I need to get some work done!