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Level 2

219 points

When I boot, it waits, then I see gray Stop sign, then it boots

I've got a Mac Pro running 10.6.8. I have an SSD internal drive in there that is selected as my boot disk. I also have a clone of this (external USB) and an internal RAID1. When I turn on the machine, the gray screen has the rotating circle of gray bars for a while (minutes), and then the gray stop sign (circle with a line through it) appears. After that, it boots from the SSD very quickly, as it should. What I'd like to know is, what else can I do (other than selecting it as my boot drive in Preferences) to make it go to that right away instead of doing whatever it's doing that causes it to delay, then fail, and only then go to the correct disk. It's weird because these other drives are also bootable so if that's what it was trying, it should be coming up in the wrong system. But it's not. What is it doing, and how do I make it go to the SSD right away?

Posted on Jun 24, 2012 3:25 PM

20 replies

Jul 9, 2012 6:57 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

The forums have been giving me a hard time about a screenshot.

I was going to suggest you use the Finder GO menu, enter:

/private/var

and look at the stuff there, including the "folders" folder.

Inside it should be a pe folder, and GetInfo will tell you what its permissions are.

Michael Levin Author

Level 2

219 points

Jul 10, 2012 1:46 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

% cd folders/

% ls -al

total 0

drwxr-xr-x 7 root wheel 238 Jul 7 05:20 .

drwxr-xr-x 34 root wheel 1156 Jul 11 2011 ..

drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Oct 16 2010 7U

drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Feb 18 05:19 SA

drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Jul 7 05:20 cn

drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Oct 16 2010 pe

drwxr-xr-x 14 root wheel 476 May 28 05:19 zz

is that normal?

Jul 10, 2012 6:03 AM in response to Michael Levin

Your console listing showed several failed attempts to create files inside the pe folder, which is what motivated my suggestion that you check its folder permissions.

Those goofy little filenames appear to be computer generated, but yes, those are the same permissions I see on mine.

Michael Levin Author

Level 2

219 points

Jul 10, 2012 6:03 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Ok then I guess the only lead I have left is to try to figure out why the logs are going to the other disk. What line of the log I posted told you that? Do you know what controls where the logs get written (where's this setting)?

thanks!

Jul 10, 2012 6:04 AM in response to Michael Levin

Almost all permissions repair messages can be safely ignored, unless they appear in RED.

When I boot, it waits, then I see gray Stop sign, then it boots