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iMac restart is stuck on 'blue screen'

Hello, I have an iMac 27" running OS X. Everytime I try to reboot/restart it gets stuck at the 'blue screen', and does not reboot. Basically it doesn't power down before being able to restart. It seems like the blue screen (with the rotating cursor) indicates maybe that somehow updates are running but I'm not certain about this. I tried to let it go for 10 minutes but to no avail. However, if I shut it off using the power button and turn on again, it starts just fine. Any suggestions as to remedy the restart problem without having to do a hard shut off/turn on?

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8)

Posted on Mar 21, 2013 7:05 AM

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Posted on Mar 21, 2013 8:27 AM

Restart the iMac holding down the "alt" key. This will give you the option to start up from the recovery Disk. Once this has been done select "Disk Utility", select your disk (normally Macintosh HD) in the left panel) and click "Repair Permissions". This normally takes a good few minutes to finish. For good measure also click "Repair Disk" as well once the permissions repair is complete.


Once done restart - this should solve your problem.

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Question marked as Best reply

Mar 21, 2013 8:27 AM in response to jdaoud

Restart the iMac holding down the "alt" key. This will give you the option to start up from the recovery Disk. Once this has been done select "Disk Utility", select your disk (normally Macintosh HD) in the left panel) and click "Repair Permissions". This normally takes a good few minutes to finish. For good measure also click "Repair Disk" as well once the permissions repair is complete.


Once done restart - this should solve your problem.

Mar 21, 2013 8:32 AM in response to jdaoud

If the Recovery HD partition does not show up when holding the Option/Alt button at startup, instead hold the Command-R keys together at startup which should boot immediately to the recovery volume.


In addition to a permissions repair, use Disk Utility to verify the hard drive for errors and repair any that show up. You can also try booting to Safe Mode by holding the Shift key at startup, which should spur the system to perform some maintenance tasks. Then reboot normally to see if the problem persists.

iMac restart is stuck on 'blue screen'

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