iMac Mid 2011 taking forever to boot up after clean install of MacOS Sierra

[beaupatrice]

Hi,

I came here to find some help with booting issue on my iMac.

I decided to start fresh and installed macOS Sierra after formatting hard drive on my 2011 iMac. I have 5 external hard drives connected and it takes 4-5 mins on white screen before showing apple logo and progress bar. If I disconnect all external hard drives then system boots up normally.

I am not sure what to do. I have done following trouble shoots without any success.

1. Cleared PRAM by holding Ctrl+Opt+P+R at startup.

2. Point to Macintosh HD under 'Startup Disc'

I think the problem is that my iMac is looking for boot device when I plugged external HDs.

I will appreciate any help.

Thanks, Beau

 

[hfg]

Once you are booted into OS X ... check SystemPreferences/StartupDisk and set it to your boot volume.

Although pointing to it should work, I always perform the full reboot from there to be sure it is set.

 

[beaupatrice]

Once you are booted into OS X ... check SystemPreferences/StartupDisk and set it to your boot volume.

Although pointing to it should work, I always perform the full reboot from there to be sure it is set.

Thanks hfg, I already tried that but still same problem. I am not sure why it is taking time to boot up with external HDs plugged. I didn't have this problem before.

Thanks

 

[hfg]

I assume your boot drive is internal? Are all your external disk drives USB, formatted OS X and in good health?

I have a 4 disk Thunderbay 4 on my 2014 5K iMac with internal SSD and it boots quickly with or without the external drive bay attached.

If your boot drive is a rotating hard disk, Sierra is generally known to be "sluggish" on non-SSD hard disks. However, a 4-5 minute boot time does seem to be excessive!

 

[beaupatrice]

Yes my boot drive is non SSD internal drive. I have no issue booting my system without external HD connected. The problem is when I connect my external drives.

I am using these external drives for the last few years without any issue but ever since I reformatted my system to install clean copy of Sierra, the problem started.

Thanks

 

[Taz Mangus]

Yes my boot drive is non SSD internal drive. I have no issue booting my system without external HD connected. The problem is when I connect my external drives.

I am using these external drives for the last few years without any issue but ever since I reformatted my system to install clean copy of Sierra, the problem started.

Thanks

Try just hooking the external HDs up one at a time. Try connecting the external HDs to another Mac computer and see what happens. Another thing you could try is doing a SMC reset. Also try this, shutdown the computer. Hold the option-key down while booting. When you see your boot devices, select your internal hard drive.

 

[beaupatrice]

Try just hooking the external HDs up one at a time. Try connecting the external HDs to another Mac computer and see what happens. Another thing you could try is doing a SMC reset. Also try this, shutdown the computer. Hold the option-key down while booting. When you see your boot devices, select your internal hard drive.

Hi Taz, I will try SMC reset and if that doesn't work I will try plugging one drive at at time. unfortunately, I don't have access to another Mac.

thanks