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New iMac slow startup? Clean install will fix.

T

toddngina

macrumors member
Original poster
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.
 
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!
 
Leon575 said:
Thank you for the tip.
I will do this when I get my new iMac next week.
Click to expand...

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
 
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.
 
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. 😀
 
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) 🙂
 
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.
 
If it's booting slowly, try this first:

Go to System Preferences > Startup Disk and select your internal HD.
 
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 :/
 
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.
 
brn2ski00 said:
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.
Click to expand...

Quicker and better running OS >>> than any inconvenience of reinstalling OS and applications.
 
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.
 
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 🙂
 
C64 said:
If it's booting slowly, try this first:

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

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.
 
C64 said:
If it's booting slowly, try this first:

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

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

Thanks
Jason
 
brn2ski00 said:
this worked great for me - no idea why though 😕
Click to expand...

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.
 
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
 
C64 said:
If it's booting slowly, try this first:

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

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!
 
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