New iMac slow startup? Clean install will fix.

[toddngina]

I had the same problem some others had with the slow startup of the new iMac. It would give me 40 sec to a min of white screen before seeing an Apple logo. It wouldn't even boot on my initial startup, I had to force shut it down and retry. So I did a erased the harddrive and did a clean install - problem fixed! Full bootup now takes 25 sec or so.

If your iMac is taking longer than 5-6 seconds to show the Apple logo on the white screen on startup, you might want to consider doing this before you get too far into moving your files over! I wonder if they put a bad batch of software on in the factory - fortunately all is right with the recovery discs.

[Leon575]

Thank you for the tip.
I will do this when I get my new iMac next week.

[littlelarry33]

I had this same problem and it took about a minute 30 to boot so I re-installed Snow Leopard and all is good its about 20 sec now!

[VicX]

Thank you for the tip.
I will do this when I get my new iMac next week.

wo.. u will get exactly the same :apple: equipments i will. touch 16G and iMac 27'' 3.06GHz, still waiting for the new iMac..

i'm wondering how to reinstall Mac OS, just transfered from PC to mac

[cathul]

Anyone tried to set up a new startup disk after first bootup?
To some in a german mac forum it did help with the long boot-up time.

[That-Is-Bull]

If I do a clean install, will I lose iLife or is the suite included on the install disk that comes with my iMac?

[littlelarry33]

If I do a clean install, will I lose iLife or is the suite included on the install disk that comes with my iMac?

You should have gotten two gray disc, one that says OS X and another labeled Applications.

[eelpout]

Has anyone done a verbose boot to figure out what is actually going on when it's slow?? Reinstalling, while effective, seems like the sledgehammer approach. :D

[C64]

Has anyone done a verbose boot to figure out what is actually going on when it's slow??
Yes (http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=8693892&postcount=3)

Strange problem though..

[lulla01]

i did this and it definitely sped it up i wonder why...

[chinesealbumart]

Just want to check if this step is still necessary

Getting my new Mac tomorrow so wonder if this is the very first thing I need to do ..

Also how do you do a clean install ? (Sorry.. first time using a Mac) :)

[Kronie]

I always do a fresh install on any new computer. I have had too many machines (mostly from Dell) that have had botched factory installs.

[C64]

If it's booting slowly, try this first:

Go to System Preferences > Startup Disk and select your internal HD.

[coronas]

I had the same issue and was gonna do a clean install of Snow Leopard. I inserted the SL disk to boot from it, but it did not work. In the end I had to force the disk out of the computer by connecting a USB mouse and left click at startup. After that for some reason my iMac boots in 25 sec without reinstalling. Weird :/

[brn2ski00]

I'd have to think that Apple will release a fix for this in a pending update. I have definitely noticed that my 21.5" doesn't boot up fast enough, but I do not plan on reinstalling the OS - too much of a PIA to get everything back on.

[53x12]

I'd have to think that Apple will release a fix for this in a pending update. I have definitely noticed that my 21.5" doesn't boot up fast enough, but I do not plan on reinstalling the OS - too much of a PIA to get everything back on.

Quicker and better running OS >>> than any inconvenience of reinstalling OS and applications.

[benxx11]

If it's booting slowly, try this first:

Go to System Preferences > Startup Disk and select your internal HD.

This worked perfectly for my 21.5" imac. Highly recommend.

[killerrobot]

Mine seems to take a while to show the Apple screen - maybe 25-30 seconds. But then Snow Leopard is up about 5-10 seconds later. Overall it seems like a normal boot time.

[chinesealbumart]

Happy to report that my initial start up (first time when boot up) was around 50-60 seconds.

After I went through the start up process, now it starts at around 30 seconds or less.. changing the START UP->HARD DISK makes minor difference in the start up.

I am happy..... 30 seconds is good for me :)

[Loudwater]

If it's booting slowly, try this first:

Go to System Preferences > Startup Disk and select your internal HD.

This worked for mine (21.5'', ATI Radeon 4670) as well. Thanks!
Before, out of the box, the starting time was about 1 minute. Now cut into half, 25-30 seconds.

[brn2ski00]

If it's booting slowly, try this first:

Go to System Preferences > Startup Disk and select your internal HD.

this worked great for me - no idea why though :confused:

[JasonEdwards]

If it's booting slowly, try this first:

Go to System Preferences > Startup Disk and select your internal HD.

Thanks. My new iMac was taking about 30 seconds to boot. After doing this it boots in under 14 seconds. Pretty cool.

Thanks
Jason

[Sun Baked]

this worked great for me - no idea why though :confused:

If you don't select a startup disk, the x bootloader doesn't immediately start, enters a default mode when it cannot find the selected boot volume.

Basically, has to hunt for a drive with the startup volume on it, then load the x bootloader.

While it should only take an extra 10-15 secs, it might try a couple few times to give the selected drive a chance to mount.

[d12south]

This works perfectly. I selected the internal HD and now my mac is booting in aprox 20 seconds.. before it was taking 55 seconds.

THANKS

[MikeJB]

If it's booting slowly, try this first:

Go to System Preferences > Startup Disk and select your internal HD.

It worked!

When I first got my new 21.5 imac it booted up in 58 secs. Then after installing 10.6.2 it took around 2 mins 40 secs.

After altering system preferences (as above) it's just 25 secs!

[300D]

A fresh install is a 100% waste of time and not the answer to the "problem".

Select the hard drive from the preferences and reboot. Problem solved.

[NevadaJack]

A fresh install is a 100% waste of time and not the answer to the "problem".

Select the hard drive from the preferences and reboot. Problem solved.

Just did that and it fixed the problem... loads very quickly now... Thanks!

[rustyosaurus]

selecting the startup disk worked for me as well. was also getting a very long white screen before the apple. after rebooting it loaded much faster - didn't time it though.

[sanjuvarma]

Yes that's right -- even my white screen was painful at about 25-30 seconds and then the apple logo for about 10-12 seconds, and then the loader wheel for around 10-12 more amounting to about 45-50 seconds.

I changed the Startup Disk to Hard drive and now it's half of that. My macbook pro with an OCZ Vertex 60G installed in it, boots up with Firefox/Adium/Skype in about 15-18 seconds. I can't wait to install a OCZ Vertex Turbo in my new iMac Core i5.

[aesthete]

Dear all,
I have recently done the clean install of snow leopard to my macbook pro 13inch. Very happily, I started installing all the software upgrades, ilife, etc, but then I noticed-as everyone eventually notices- that booting time is dramatically slow to the extent that it causes a big nostalgia to leopard system...:) [It was about 45-50 seconds] Anyway, I somehow remembered, among all this messy psychology, that I shut and restart the computer before installing the software updates of 10.6.02, etc, and then I suspected that perhaps one of the updates were the reason. As an amateur detective, I would like to track down the sinner... Anyhow, I did the clean install of snow leopard again. I checked the times of startups (from pressing the startup button till the desktop readiness) and shutdowns, and I did not install any upgrade, any ilife app, or any personal data, etc. Here is the result of three tests: Average scores for shutdown=3-5 seconds; average scores of startup= 28-32 seconds.Then I installed the combo pack of 10.6.02, Itunes and Remote Desktop Client updates, and after finishing the installations, I run three more tests. Here are the scores: Average scores of shutdown=4 seconds; average scores of startup= 45 seconds... This is my tentative conclusion about the whole issue: Apple decided to solve some problems of Snow Leopard like the famous guest account problem, etc, on the risk of making one of its very particular good features of speedy start up to catch windows boot-up times... I really did not like this, and all the evidence seems to be indicating this conclusion. So what is the next step, shall we wait for one more update combo to fix this slow boot up problem or entertain for a while the speed of 10.6.0 without installing any update?

[epo]

If it's booting slowly, try this first:

Go to System Preferences > Startup Disk and select your internal HD.On my new iMac 27/4Gb/i7 this reduced the time between pressing the power button to appearance of desktop wallpaper from 60 to 30 secs. On my G4 powerbook/10.5.8 it made no difference.

[kheops]

If it's booting slowly, try this first:

Go to System Preferences > Startup Disk and select your internal HD.

Wow! Thanks a lot. Works like a charm.

BEFORE: up to 2min
NOW: 20sec

:)

[jordan eff]

the first 2 times i started my new imac it took a while before the apple logo appeared but now it is really fast and i havnt changed anything or done a fresh install

[slicecom]

Wow! Thanks a lot. Works like a charm.

BEFORE: up to 2min
NOW: 20sec

:)

x2 Just saved me a lot of time (no longer have to do a fresh install)!

[cAPS lOCK]

A fresh install is a 100% waste of time and not the answer to the "problem".

Select the hard drive from the preferences and reboot. Problem solved.

You da man. I sure am glad I read page 2.

[Libertine Lush]

If it's booting slowly, try this first:

Go to System Preferences > Startup Disk and select your internal HD.

I'd like to add another voice of thanks. Doing as you recommended cut the boot time for my new 27" iMac from about 55 seconds to 24 seconds. Thank you!

[cathul]

You da man. I sure am glad I read page 2.

Not that someone wrote exactly the same on page 1...

[Semimorphus]

If it's booting slowly, try this first:

Go to System Preferences > Startup Disk and select your internal HD.

Thx, worked great for me:

Before: 1 min. 38 secons
After: 26 seconds

[geonut]

I had the same problem with the slow startup and was very disappointed in my machine after reading all the benchmarks posted.. I tried selecting the Hard Drive in the system preferences / Startup as mentioned above and it worked perfectly! It starts up very quickly now. Thanks!.. I had initially loaded the new computer from a Time Machine Backup.. I'm not sure if that had anything to do with it or not.

[Thorne^]

Thanks a lot, works perfect

Startup times iMac 21.5 with ATI Video card

Before: 39 seconds
After: 19 seconds

[Braender74]

Big thanks to C64!

I went in and chose iinternal HD i Sys Prefs and now startup is 34 secs in stead of 71!! Incredibly simple fix. Thanks!

[djcorrosive]

Is it OSX Snow Leopard that comes with iMac 27" ?

[pug1]

A fresh install is a 100% waste of time and not the answer to the "problem".

Select the hard drive from the preferences and reboot. Problem solved.
GREAT solution. My previous i5 took about 25 seconds to boot and my new i7 took about a minute. I followed this suggestion and my i7 boots up just as fast as the i5! You helped me where no one else could! Not that it was a major issue but what an easy solution!
Thanks!:)

[bristleworm]

Is it OSX Snow Leopard that comes with iMac 27" ?

Yes. All current models ship with Snow Leopard preinstalled.

[pauldolling]

If it's booting slowly, try this first:

Go to System Preferences > Startup Disk and select your internal HD.

Absolutely perfect. Thanks a lot. The perfect solution!

[adityaf92]

After selecting the Macintosh HD from "Startup Disk" in System Preferences your Mac bootloader no longer has to search for the available drives. It knows it has to select the Macintosh HD, and therefore doesnt waste time, so it boots up faster.

[AVDG]

If it's booting slowly, try this first:

Go to System Preferences > Startup Disk and select your internal HD.

So simple, but so effective, thanks C64 !! :)

[biggd]

I always do a fresh install on any new computer. I have had too many machines (mostly from Dell) that have had botched factory installs.

Or bloatware and partitioned hard drives. F I hate getting new systems from them