MacBook Pro extremely slow start up, Rainbow wheel of death. HELP!

While you are waiting for Les, start by using CleanMyMac2 to do the only thing it's really good for...uninstalling itself. How To Uninstall CleanMyMac 2?.

Your Pace Support Anti-Piracy software hasn't been updated since Snow Leopard and is almost certainly causing you issues. If you need it in order to run the software it's protecting then you need to update it. If you no longer need it then you'll need to remove it all.

Kernel Extensions:

[not loaded] com.seagate.driver.PowSecDriverCore (5.1.1) Support

[not loaded] com.seagate.driver.PowSecLeafDriver_10_4 (5.1.1) Support

[not loaded] com.seagate.driver.PowSecLeafDriver_10_5 (5.1.1) Support

[not loaded] com.seagate.driver.SeagateDriveIcons (5.1.1) Support

Launch Agents:

[running] com.seagate.SeagateStorageGauge.plist Support

Aslo uninstall all the Seagate backup software. Use Time Machine instead. Just about all third-party backup software that comes bundled with an external drive is pure kludge and very intrusive on your workflow. Time Machine has little effect on your computer use.

Urgent advice form Madmacs and AlanJones: I imagine that you have already uninstalled these two softwares.

You have to uninstall Roxio also. And the hacked software if that is still there....

You forgot the important battery line "condition". Does it say 'normal' or 'service battery'?

I am not happy about the Sierra Wireless software installed, and I am not sure about the (ZTE) the windows keyboard drivers: I always thought that they were not really necessary for that keyboard on a mac.

All this said about cleaning your system, I have the nagging feeling that we have to check the condition of your startup disk !

So start with making backups, backups!!!

That done start the Recovery partition (Restart while holding CMD+R, you need a good internet connection), and then start DiskUtility from that menu, do verify disk and repair disk. What does it say?

If this started happening without your having made any changes and without a warning of low disk space, then it's likely that the startup drive, or some other hardware component, is failing. Back up all data immediately, then run Apple Diagnostics or the Apple Hardware Test.

Even if the test is negative, you should make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store to have the machine tested more thoroughly.

The first thing you might want to try is to reset the SMC:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964

If you read that article and look under the system performance section it may be describing some of your problems. Personally I've never seen that happen but it obviously can, otherwise it wouldn't be in one of Apple's own documents.

If you've recently updated the OS and the systems started after the update, then there may be a conflict between the updated OS and some drivers or applications. If this is the case, considering how much stuff you have installed on that system that probably shouldn't be installed, if it was my system I would just back up what I needed and do a clean install of everything as a starting point.

Some other possibilities include:

1. You have too many applications set to automatically restart and resume after re-starting. The solution would be to close all apps before shutting down.
2. You're running out of disk space. The solution is to free up disk space.
3. Your hard drive or cable is failing. The solution is to diagnose and repair as needed.
4. Incompatible kext's are causing both booting and performance problems. The solution would be to track them down and remove them, which may not be so easy.
5. You have insufficient memory to run or resume running applications. The solution would be to get more memory.
6. Anti-virus software (if installed) is blocking processes. The solution would be to at least temporarily disable the anti virus software and see if the problem stops. If it does you probably don't need it, but I don't even know if you have it installed.
7. Just plain bad luck! Solution: get better luck.

Hope this helps in some way.

It sounds sort of like your drive is failing. I wouldn't swear to that but it sounds like it. Normally I'd recommend Scannerz to evaluate the drive, but it costs money and you may end up spending money on other things, plus the comment "I'm not too Mac Savvy" tends to make me wonder if you wouldn't be better off taking it to the Apple store and letting them diagnose it for you. As an FYI, I now do beta testing on Scannerz so I'm more than a little biased.

If it was me, and I had no tools to test anything, I would, assuming you have backups, try a fresh re-install. If the drive is failing the installation may fail. If the system is failing in some way, the installation may fail. The fact that Disk Utility reported orphaned blocks implies that some sectors might have been lost, hence the files associated with those sectors are orphaned. If this was a cable problem, you would simply be getting delays as the system keeps doing re-tries, but orphaning of files typically indicates that the drive is losing sectors, unless it was shutdown incorrectly, and I'm assuming your not doing that.

If you know someone else with a Mac you might be able to put their system into target disk mode and boot off of that to see if the system itself is running OK.

I don't know how familiar or comfortable you are doing tests, experiments, etc. so you may seriously want to consider taking the unit into Apple or an authorized service center.

bootsey88 wrote:

I got EasyFind, and used it to delete/destroy the rest of the files. Did the same for Roxio, Sierra Wireless and Seagate. PaceAp would have been installed with Pro Tools, which is now gone.

There are several files associated with Sierra, PaceAp and Seagate (.plist & .bom files) that I cannot delete, as I get an error saying that cannot be deleted.

OK, well that needs to be taken care of. I suspect it was because you were trying to use EasyFind to delete them and it doesn't have permission to do that. Instead highlight the file and choose "Reveal In Finder" from the EasyFind File menu. Then you can drag those files to the trash and you should get an "Authenticate" choice which will allow you to use your Admin password to move them. I know there is also an uninstaller for PaceAp available from iLok (warning: the link will download a zip file) if the above doesn't solve it.

nothing has changed. At the moment it boots to the grey screen with the Apple logo and cogwheel. Takes about 10 mins to then go through to log in. Often the fan will start running as if the system is under load.

When I click login the rainbow pops up and it freezes for a while. Then it eventually loads the home page. Takes another 10 - 20 mins to load everything, the clock and wifi connections in the top right take ages to load.

It will be extremely slow for another 20 mins or so. Cant open folders or do simple tasks without getting the rainbow wheel. Then after a little while it seems to run OK.

Mavericks always takes a little longer to get started, especially after any major updates or repairs the cause it to have to rebuild it's many databases, so expect to see this occasionally, but I must admit that 20 minutes seems excessive. If the next reboot takes that long, then you definitely have much more to do.

Should I try a full system wipe and reinstallation?

No there's a better solution that has worked for me in the past. Just restore OS X from the Recovery HD. That will only replace your OS and leave all your user and third party apps alone.

Unfortunately the "etrecheck" fad has led you off on a tangent. Instead of wasting your time deleting files that demonstrably havenothing to do with the cause of your problem, and some of which may be useful to you, you should be dealing with your failing drive. If you don't deal with it, you're going to lose every bit of data you have that isn't backed up. Your backups may already be contaminated with corrupt data.

Unfortunately, you did not succeed in any crapware removal, as the Etrecheck list proves.

And since I said to investigate the disk health first and backup backup, I am now even more convinced that you should concentrate on the disk health. When Disk Utility finds something to repair, the disk may be seriously ill. So this is one of the few times that i agree with Linc that you should forget about the cleaning process and concentrate on the disk, because the cleaning prcess, how neccessary it can be, can not repair hardware.

I just read the thread again, and I stand with my points made. I just want to react to the paceapps kexts found: these are harmless and part of OSX, do not touch them: these are are one folder and kexts inside, that have to do with older OS. Sometimes one is loaded (in this case the SnowLeopard), because some older software needs it.

LexSchellings wrote:

the paceapps kexts found: these are harmless and part of OSX

Lex,

I'm absolutely certain they have never been part of any OS X I ever used. They are from iLok as a License Management tool to prevent piracy. As the OP stated, they came with Avid Pro Tools and are pretty old (v5.7.2, current is v5.9.1). I have run across users here in the forum who have had their situation solved by removing it. That said, I don't really think that's any part of the problem here.

connecti

LexSchellings wrote:

Yes mad, they come with Mavericks. Look for the folder kext inside Extensions

I double-checked that before I wrote my response. There is no such folder. I also checked my virgin Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion partitions and there's no sign there either.

You must have migrated it from somewhere.

And just to be triple sure, I just used Find Any FIle to search all hidden spots for contains "com.paceap" and came up empty.