Q: Mac fails to restart after installing El Capitan

Thanks for the suggestion Pmintz25.

I've tried to startup in safe mode but it's not possible I'm afraid.

When I restart and hold down the shift key as soon as I hear the chimes there's only a second or two before the Apple logo appears. I release the key and the grey progress bar appears and everything continues as before. Nothing happens.

Tried a few times, even kept the shift key down after the Apple logo, nothing happens.

Any other ideas?

Thanks

B

Thanks Donald, tried unplugging, waiting, plugging in and switching on again. Same problem I'm afraid. Grey, unmoving progress bar. Tried a few times.

Bruce

Thanks for the idea Pmintz25, got the HD icons, tried my Macintosh HD icon first, same problem. Tried again selecting the Recovery icon, used Disk Utility to run repair, no faults showed up. Started up again, grey bar as before. Tried Recovery mode again, still failed to kick in.

Computer just sat there with the Apple logo anod a stationary grey bar below.

Stumped!

Okay, I'll try that first thing tomorrow. Many thanks for your help!

Bruce 

Well, reset the NVRam as suggested. Didn't work first time, but did a second time. Computer eventually settled down at a window which gave me an option to reinstall the OS. Wifi was no longer available so I found a way of resetting this, and was able to do the OS reinstall.

It took about about 40 minutes to download, and a further 35 minutes to install, which it seemed to do successfully after a few chimes and blank screens (all quite normal).

After all this was done I was presented with my normal user login window. Remembering I was advised to "always do a restart after installing an operating system", I clicked the restart button at the bottom of the login window, and after the chime (which took almost a minute to sound) I held down the shift key to access safe mode to allow the computer to do its system checks etc.

As soon as the Apple logo appeared on screen I released the shift key, and the the grey progress bar appeared as before. The grey progress bar remained grey, and is still grey as I type this on my iPad, an hour later.

in other words, back to square one.

Has anybody any ideas what to try next, please?

In the meantime I may try and reinstall Yosemite from Time Machine. El Crapitan has lost its magic now.

Thanks,

Bruce

Only just read your helpful reply after an afternoon of over a dozen restarts of various kinds, unfortunately. Nothing worked at all.

Finally after a restart involving me holding down the power button at the back CONTINUOUSLY while simultaneously holding down the OPT-CMD-P-R keys (yes, all at the same time!), the progress bar appeared and darkened up to halfway, the screen went dark, then the bar appeared again and stopped halfway, then the window with four choices appeared, including Disk Utility, which I chose. Checked the Mac HD and it was OK. Went back to the four choices and selected a reinstall from Time Machine. As I didn't have your reply at this point I just went ahead. It will take until after 9pm tonight (I'm in the UK).

if it works and I have Yosemite back I will see how it goes and maybe try a defrag. All being well I will do as you suggest and reformat the HD before I try El Capitan again (if ever!).

Yes, thank Steve Jobs for Time Machine!     

Thank you for all your help too buddy!

Bruce 

Good luck stefgaup! Maybe my reply to Pmintz25 might help a little?

Aren't system upgrades a pain!

Bruce           

Sorry to be a pest, but I'm having problems again.

I reinstalled Yosemite late last night, and it seemed to be all as before. I thought to be on the safe side I would defrag the hard drive using idefrag which has always worked well in the past. It needs to do a restart in order continue. The Mac failed to restart! I tried several times with no success.

So I thought I would go for the reformat you suggested. I updated the Time Machine backup, then restarted holding down the Command and R keys. It took a few goes, but eventually OSX Utilities appeared. I selected Disk Utility, but the only option available was Erase, which it completed in half a minute. I imagine all that achieved was deleting the directory?

I looked up the correct procedure online, and followed the instructions carefully, reformatting was never an option for me in Disk Utilities. Erase should have written zeros over the HD according to the article I read, which I assume would have been as good as reformatting?

Am I doing something wrong here? I don't seem to be getting a complete wipe of all the data on the hard drive, just a directory wipe?

At the moment the Mac is doing a restore of Yosemite from Time Machine, but the HD isn't fixed. I can't even defrag the blessed thing let alone reformat.

Restarts are difficult to achieve, so something's not right is it. It no longer looks like an El Capitan issue as the problems are still there in Yosemite.

If you would still like to help I would be grateful, thank you.

Bruce