Whenever I start up my iMac, instead of getting the apple logo, i get a black background and white text with things the computer is loading, and its the same thing at shutdown. Anyone have any ideas? I just got this thing and already a problem.
What you are describing is either single user or verbose mode that runs Unix info across the screen during startup. Normally this requires that you press either the "Command= S" or the "Command + V" keys immediately after the startup chime. These modes are used for trouble shooting your Mac or for software development. Are you pressing any key combos during startup? I am at a lose as to why this is happening if you are not specifying that your Mac startup this way.
Did a little searching and it appears that there is a command to set a Mac to always boot into verbose mode. There is a command to revert back to normal startup. Here is the link; Bypassing the Mac OS X GUI
If you are still ending-up in the familiar OS X environment when it's done, then what you are seeing is the "verbose mode" startup.
Go in to Terminal (the command line) by going to:
Applications --> Utilities --> Terminal
at the command line, type in the following exactly as it appears:
sudo /usr/sbin/nvram boot-args=""
Then, close terminal, and restart.
Verbose mode is simply a mode that shows you everything that is happening as you start-up. This is useful for figuring out where a system is locking-up during startup, etc.
To see verbose mode, you can also hold down the Command (Apple Key) and the letter "V" while starting up.
Or, you could go into the Terminal again, and type in the following:
This is a pretty common occurrence. Many people report finding this symptom when the get their computer back from the shop.
Most likely, the service techs used this to see how things were working, and forgot to put it back into normal mode.
But, fortunately, it is an extremely simple fix 🙂
Let us know if you have other questions.
P.S., if you'd like, go ahead and click the "Helpful" or "Solved" buttons on any of the posts / replies above if you feel they were helpful or adequately answered your question.
