When I login, the only thing that appears on the screen is the wallpaper and cursor. Unable to do anything. Can somebody help me?

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When I login, the only thing that appears on the screen is the wallpaper and cursor. Unable to do anything. Can somebody help me?

When I login to my computer, the only thing that appears on the screen is the wallpaper and the cursor. I can move the cursor, but that is it. I have a Mac Pro 2006 running Snow Leopard OS X 10.6.8. I have tried "Safe Mode", unsuccessful every attempt. Computer will not boot into "Safe Mode". I have tried resetting "SMC", issue still occurs. I have tried resetting "NVRAM", seemed to reset (I heard the start up sound twice) but same issue still occurs. I purchased Snow Leopard 10.6.1 to try to repair disc permissions, when I hold "C" to boot to disc, computer still boots to login screen. Tried holding "Option" still boots to login screen. I am pretty sure I have tried just about everything.

All I want to know is what could cause my computer to only show the Desktop background and cursor after logging in? I work for AppleCare and haven't once received a call like this and definitely can't find an article that specifies what to do if you can't boot into "Safe Mode" or on to the Snow Leopard disc. It sounds to me like there is a hardware issue going on being as I could boot into any other mode.

Memory-10gb

Storage-1tb

Not sure of the processor, can't access that information.

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on May 8, 2015 12:43 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Grant Bennet-Alder

Level 10

127,843 points

May 8, 2015 2:47 PM in response to Niraya

Computer will not boot into Safe Mode, [won't boot using] "C" key [or] Option key}

That is very unusual. Sometimes it is caused by not having your keyboard connected to a USB on the chassis, and trying to use a USB on a display or other Hub. Those come up too late for those "snag keys" to be seen.

the only thing that appears on the screen is the wallpaper and the cursor.

That sometimes happens on a second display. make sure you do not have a cable or another display connected to any ports other than the one you intend to use.

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Answer 2

Johnb-one

Level 6

9,162 points

May 8, 2015 9:00 AM in response to Niraya

Reboot, as you boot, hold down the option key or Command R to reboot from the recovery partition. Holding down Option on reboot forces your Mac to find all the available bootable drives and show them. other than zapping pram (hold down Option, Apple, P, R on restart of Mac< hold down for 3 chimes and let go> and let it boot up usually. Other than that, see if you see the apple at the top left of screen, go into finder preferences, and turn on show hard discs etc...

other than that, accessibility might be turned on . maybe pressing command, Shift, F8 could disable it

other that that, I have nothing.....see if you can boot from the dvd, run disk utility and make the HD your startup driver rather than the dvd after maybe reinstalling the OS. Don't worry anything on HD won't be touched or erased

JB

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