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spinning gear below apple logo on startup/parallels issue

S

scottfenner

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 12, 2008
27
0
i've just noticed my startup has become about 20 seconds longer than usual and there is now a spinning circle that appears when the apple logo appears on-screen.

i've looked it up on google and this came up:

"When loading the kernel environment, BootX first attempts to load a previously cached set of device drivers. If this cache is missing or corrupt, BootX searches /System/Library/Extensions for drivers and other kernel extensions whose OSBundleRequired property is set to the appropriate value for the type of boot. (This is either a local or network boot, depending on the current selection in Startup Disk preferences.) You can recognize this stage by the metallic Apple logo and the spinning gear that appear on the screen."

because this mentions networks, i'm worried it might have something to do with parallels which i had uninstalled previously, or so i'd thought.

when a couple of networks related to parallels reappeared once i deleted them. i deleted them again but decided to look it up on google and found this page: http://kb.parallels.com/en/5714

i ran the terminal command on this page and did the subsequent permissions repairs but reboot has been slow ever since.

to make things worse, and this is why i think boot up is slower now, is because i didn't uninstall parallels at first after all. not sure what that terminal command did or if it had anything to do with it but i thought it would be worth mentioning.

sorry this is such a long post and also sorry for being so stupid and messing with terminal when i really don't know what i'm doing! hope someone can help, thanks.
 
Sheeds said:
If this is still a problem for you, try Archiving and Installing with your boot disk.
Click to expand...

i've had a look on the apple site because i don't know what archiving and installing is and the first thing mentioned a big urge to backup data and i don't really have the space to do so. is this a risky thing or am i likely to be ok doing this without backup?

also, how easy is this to do? i'm not great with computers when it comes to this sort of depth so if there is anything you can say to point me in the right direction, i may very well go for the archive and install as it's always worth a shot.

thanks again for the tip. i would be grateful for anything more you might be able to say :)
 
To be honest, it probably isn't worth Archiving and Installing, I've done it before and that was when not only did it take long to start up, but it never got past the gray screen and the pinwheel, it would just pinwheel silently for hours. The Archive and Install fixed the problem after weeks of other attempted fixes.

It's not hard to do, but it does take an hour or two for it to work it's magic. Apple's probably urging you to backup because they don't want a lawsuit, but it's probably still a risk you'd have to take.

If it's only an extra 20 seconds I wouldn't worry about it for now, just think of it as the time a Windows computer takes to boot up normally. :)

It should be even less of an issue because of the amount of times when you actually have to turn OFF your Mac, I hardly ever do. Macs have exceptional sleep characteristics. I know someone who hasn't turned off his Mac for over a year. Sleep mode is awesome.
 
Yeah actually, I just restarted my MacBook Pro and the little spinning wheel is there for awhile. It's been so long since I last restarted I guess I forgot.

How long does it take to boot up from start to when you first see your desktop?
 
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