OS X Lion won't start up in safe mode

Hi David ..

I've yet to have a problem booting in Safe Mode on my Mac running v10.7 Lion.

If you are having problems with your Mac try using Lion Recovery.

Keep mind that a Safe Mode boot can take much longer than a normal boot before your see the startup window or desktop.

Carolyn Samit wrote:

Keep mind that a Safe Mode boot can take much longer than a normal boot before your see the startup window or desktop.

Special emphasis on the word MUCH. Since Safe Mode does lots of maintenance items such as purging old caches, verifying the disk and such, the fuller the disk is or the more time has elapsed since the last Repair Disk operation on Disk Utility, the longer Safe Mode will take to start. I once saw it take over 10 minutes on a particularly abandoned Mac.

Follow the steps here

Step by Step to fix your Mac

If nothing works, you might have to do this

Create a data recovery, undelete boot drive

before you do #18 or #20

I'm having the exact same problems! Any resolution?

I have exactly the same problem. Has anybody found a fix for this? Or does it really need three to five hours to start in safe mode?

I have exactly the same problem.

Same issue Mac OS X 10.8.1

Boot normal, runs ok but not great, lots of app crashes

Boot into safe mode stalls at about 25% progress bar. Left over night, 6 hrs, same place where it was left. Not exactly "slow", but "glacial" if not hung. Must be hung.

Ran disk repair from boot thumb drive, drive shows 100% ok. Ran disk repair on partition, 100% ok

Reboot to safe mode, hang

Ran install (reinstall) from 10.8 boot thumb drive, installed fine, updated fine to 10.8.1.

Reboot into safe mode, hang

Created new account, moved all data and settings by hand, set all privs by hand (what a pain).

Reboot into safe mode, hang

Reset parameter ram , 3 times to catch extended pram.

Reboot into safe mode, hang

Same here. Safe boot gets about 25 to 30% across the progress bar and hangs.

I've tried disk repair, permissions, reinstalling the OS (10.8.2) via the rescue partition, disconnecting all periferals, etc.

Nothing works.

I have the same problem as everyone else - won't boot up in safe mode (Lion OS), hangs about 1/3 of way through progress bar. I'm also having a problem with Time Machine, which has started to crawl so slowly it's unusable. That's why I wanted to try safe mode. Wonder if the two are related.

I'm having the exact same problem. I even reinstalled the OS from recovery, but the problem still exists. Having an issue with Avid HD Native, which suggested booting up in safe mode to help resolve its issues. So, I'm actually getting hammered on multiple sides with this... and the clock keeps ticking...

Any Movement on this? Does apple have a clue.

Tried different disks and installs.

Dual 6 Core 2010 5,1 12GB factory memory.

Still no updates on this thread?

Getting 10.8.2 to hang in the same spot every time in safe mode. Normal boot works like a charm.

About to re-install everything on another drive and see what happens. Really annoying.

Same problem here. Computer has been taking about 5 minutes to boot up and start a browser. Once it's at that point, there is occasional slowness.