FamousCFC

Q: MacBook stuck 75% on loading screen

HI, I upgraded to El Capitan OS X 10.11 a couple of weeks ago and though it took longer than I'd have expected and two or three attempts, since then the Mac had been working fine and I've been using it most days. One of the things I did notice was that it took longer to start up and spent time on the white loading screen with Apple logo and progress bar underneath it (albeit under a minute) whereas before it would load up almost instantly.

I was using it all day on Monday and have gone to use it today, but it's just stuck on that screen with about three quarters of the loading bar filled but doesn't seem to be progressing. I've rebooted and tried again three times just in case but it does the same thing each time. It's almost impossible to tell if it's frozen or just going really slowly but I thought I'd leave it third time to see whether it does load but just takes a while. It's been about twenty minutes and it doesn't appear to have progressed at all once getting up to that third quarter. Any ideas please?

 

I tried booting it in safe mode which I've not had much experience of doing before but I don't know if it worked or if it's trying to load in safe mode as we speak!

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.4), 2010 MacBook Pro

Posted on May 4, 2016 4:38 AM

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Q: MacBook stuck 75% on loading screen

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  • by FamousCFC,

    FamousCFC FamousCFC May 4, 2016 7:53 AM in response to FamousCFC
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Notebooks
    May 4, 2016 7:53 AM in response to FamousCFC

    Update - I'm starting to worry this IS safe mode!

    I waited an hour and nothing happened, I tried again and now the loading bar is only going past halfway, not even to three quarters. I am getting worried now. The irony is I was going to spend today copying all my important files from my hard drive to an external hard drive as I thought it was well overdue.

     

    Any help would be really appreciated please.

  • by OGELTHORPE,

    OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE May 4, 2016 8:04 AM in response to FamousCFC
    Level 9 (52,313 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 4, 2016 8:04 AM in response to FamousCFC

    Once you have backed up your data, boot into the recovery mode:

     

    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314

     

    From this menu, select Disk Utility:

    Screen Shot 2015-12-12 at 9.47.11 AM.png

    Run Disk Utility>First Aid>Repair.

     

    If the disk cannot be repaired, it will have to be replaced.

     

    Ciao.

  • by FamousCFC,

    FamousCFC FamousCFC May 4, 2016 10:39 AM in response to OGELTHORPE
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Notebooks
    May 4, 2016 10:39 AM in response to OGELTHORPE

    Thanks, is there any way I can back things up without being able to get into the Mac first? Will I be able to do a backup from here? Or does the Time Machine automatically back everything up from when I was last using it? (in this case, Monday)

     

    The only thing I've tried in the meantime is trying to start using Verbose mode but I then just ended up on the load screen without the loading bar getting filled up at all!

  • by OGELTHORPE,

    OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE May 4, 2016 10:47 AM in response to FamousCFC
    Level 9 (52,313 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 4, 2016 10:47 AM in response to FamousCFC

    If you have a Time Machine HDD connected and have the application turned on, it will have your data backed up the last time it ran which presumably was last Monday.  If you have not used the MBP since then, the worst case is that the Time Machine may not have all changes reflected during the last hour of use (worst case).

     

    Another option would be to try Target disk mode and copy the data to another volume:

     

    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201462

     

    Ciao.

  • by FamousCFC,

    FamousCFC FamousCFC May 4, 2016 10:56 AM in response to OGELTHORPE
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Notebooks
    May 4, 2016 10:56 AM in response to OGELTHORPE

    Thanks, only the last hour wouldn't be a problem   I am now just worrying whether I had Time Machine turned on! Sorry for all the questions but will I be able to check to see when the last Time Machine backup was before doing anything?

    I'm just really worried in case I do something drastic which deletes all my files and I'm unable to get them back. The plan was to put photos, movies and music onto the external hard drive today ironically just in case something like this did happen as I realised how poor I'd been in backing things up.

  • by OGELTHORPE,

    OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE May 4, 2016 11:07 AM in response to FamousCFC
    Level 9 (52,313 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 4, 2016 11:07 AM in response to FamousCFC

    You will need access to a functioning Mac.  Please read this:

     

    http://pondini.org/TM/17.html

     

    Ciao.

  • by FamousCFC,

    FamousCFC FamousCFC May 4, 2016 11:11 AM in response to OGELTHORPE
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Notebooks
    May 4, 2016 11:11 AM in response to OGELTHORPE

    Thanks. That's going to be a problem

     

    If I run the first aaid repair, that shouldn't delete anything though really should it? As in photos and music files

  • by OGELTHORPE,

    OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE May 4, 2016 11:15 AM in response to FamousCFC
    Level 9 (52,313 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 4, 2016 11:15 AM in response to FamousCFC

    FamousCFC wrote:

     

    If I run the first aaid repair, that shouldn't delete anything though really should it? As in photos and music files

    No it should not, but things can go wrong, that is why backups make life less stressful.

     

    Ciao.

  • by FamousCFC,

    FamousCFC FamousCFC May 4, 2016 12:06 PM in response to OGELTHORPE
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Notebooks
    May 4, 2016 12:06 PM in response to OGELTHORPE

    Thanks, unfortunately unable to back up so I went ahead with the repair on both the disks (I'm presuming hard drive and start up disk). I don't know whether it has resolved anything on either as it just said Done. I've rebooted and I'm still getting the the loading bar screen which stops loading after a certain point.

  • by OGELTHORPE,

    OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE May 4, 2016 12:40 PM in response to FamousCFC
    Level 9 (52,313 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 4, 2016 12:40 PM in response to FamousCFC

    Do you have two HDDs installed?  Have you eliminated the DVD drive and installed an additional HDD?

     

    The disk that you should be repairing is the one with the OSX installed on it (the startup disk). 

     

    here are detailed Apple instructions:

     

    https://support.apple.com/kb/PH22243?locale=en_US

     

    When you finished, was there a message in GREEN affirming that the repair was successful or was there a message in RED that the repair was not successful?

     

    Ciao.

  • by FamousCFC,

    FamousCFC FamousCFC May 4, 2016 1:43 PM in response to OGELTHORPE
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Notebooks
    May 4, 2016 1:43 PM in response to OGELTHORPE

    Sorry for confusion, just the one hard drive and message in green showed successful

     

    I'm really starting to think it's a software issue now. From that screen I'm trying to reinstall the OS, will probably run overnight now. Fingers crossed that works as nothing else seems to be :/ will be a sleepless night!

  • by FamousCFC,

    FamousCFC FamousCFC May 5, 2016 1:09 AM in response to FamousCFC
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Notebooks
    May 5, 2016 1:09 AM in response to FamousCFC

    I guess the OS reinstallation completed overnight, unfortunately though the problem remains, the loading bar gets to about 75% then just stays there, so I'm still unable to log in I'm stumped by this one

  • by OGELTHORPE,

    OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE May 5, 2016 3:48 AM in response to FamousCFC
    Level 9 (52,313 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 5, 2016 3:48 AM in response to FamousCFC

    See if you can run an Apple Hardware Test.  Use the installation disk that came with your MBP which has the AHT instructions written on it.

     

    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201257

     

    Note that an error free AHT is not conclusive.

     

    If you have an extra external HDD, connect it to your MBP via USB and see if you can install an OSX on it.

     

    These actions are to see if there is an internal connection problem.

     

    Ciao.