What would Cause a 2018 mini to Boot Really Slowly?

[F-Train]

I'm raising this out of curiosity as I've solved the problem.

My mini started taking a long time to boot. I didn't time it, but it was a good two or three minutes.

I had installed Boot Camp Windows, but otherwise everything was standard, and I wasn't running any third party apps on start-up.

It was also doing weird things, like refusing to go into Recovery mode.

I deleted Boot Camp Windows, but it made no difference.

I reinstalled Mojave, but that also didn't solve the problem.

Then I wiped the disk and reinstalled Mojave. Problem solved.

What would cause this? If it was a virus/malware, it's the first time I've experienced that on any computer, let alone on a Mac.

Maybe there are too many possible reasons to speculate, but I'm curious.

 

[Apple_Robert]

You can rule out virus / malware. You could have had some kind of driver conflict or more than likely, your OS got corrupt.

Either way, it is good you got it fixed.

 

[MandiMac]

Same thought here. Maybe the SSD was configured the tiniest bit wrong, leading to diagnosis and checks all over the place (what BasicGreatGuy meant with corrupt). Glad to hear you're okay now!

 

[SoCalReviews]

You can rule out virus / malware. You could have had some kind of driver conflict or more than likely, your OS got corrupt.

Either way, it is good you got it fixed.

Good analysis. There are a lot more dangers... viruses, malware, spyware, browser injected infections, etc.. out there than people realize. Just running a Mac doesn't make users immune to them. Wiping the drive can solve a lot of these issues. The driver conflict or OS corruption happens too. That is what happened on one of my Mac Minis during the High Sierra upgrade process over a year ago but the drive didn't have to be wiped... just reinstalling MacOS HS worked for that case.

 

[F-Train]

Thanks for helping to identify the possible causes of the slow boot.

I erased the disk two days ago and everything's been fine since, including after a Boot Camp Windows reinstall.

I'm pretty sure now that the difficulty getting into Recovery Mode was caused by using a wireless keyboard. I'm now using wired to get into the Mac/Windows option window and it's foolproof.

 

[boomspot]

There was likely an issue with your boot loader that was delaying startup. Perhaps boot camp corrupted a system file? Hard to say without access to the system. Glad you sorted it out!

 

[ixxx69]

I'm raising this out of curiosity as I've solved the problem.

My mini started taking a long time to boot. I didn't time it, but it was a good two or three minutes.

I had installed Boot Camp Windows, but otherwise everything was standard, and I wasn't running any third party apps on start-up.

It was also doing weird things, like refusing to go into Recovery mode.

I deleted Boot Camp Windows, but it made no difference.

I reinstalled Mojave, but that also didn't solve the problem.

Then I wiped the disk and reinstalled Mojave. Problem solved.

What would cause this? If it was a virus/malware, it's the first time I've experienced that on any computer, let alone on a Mac.

Maybe there are too many possible reasons to speculate, but I'm curious.

Did you trying resetting the NVRAM/PRAM & SMC (as applicable to your mac model)? That usually fixes it.

I also will run disk utility "first aid".

Between those two fixes many mac behaving badly issues.