Wednesday 29 October 2014

6 Mac startup options a user should know

There are a number of Mac startup options that are available for the troubleshooting and system management.  These days lot of startup issues are originating in Mac, so users should be aware of these options to handle most of the problems themselves. Let us have a look at these options:



Recovery Mode

The Mac users can easily diagnose the problems in Mac such as hardware issues, restore Time Machine backups, manage hard drives and even reinstall OS X with the help of Recovery mode option. To use this option, one has to reboot or start the Mac and hold down the Command +R keys simultaneously till then you hear the startup chime. And then you could see the options on the screen there to use the recovery mode successfully.

Startup Manager

Mac built-in startup manager is for those people who use multiple internal drives or partitions. Just reboot your Mac and hold the Option key till then you hear the startup chime.  Then, you could see all the bootable devices appear on the screen. Now, the Mac startup Manager will update the bootable devices that you add or drop and you could see automatically in the options.

Safe boot

Now, this OS X facility is called Safe Boot. This facility is use to troubleshoot those issues which are caused by using incompatible software. To use this facility, keep holding the Shift key on your keyboard till then you hear the startup chime and see the grey progress bar under the Apple Logo.  When triggered, this safe boot option will check the integrity of the startup volume, loads the required kernel extensions, disable all user fonts, clear fonts cache and disable all the login items. This safe boot option may take longer time to boot as compared to the normal boot process. Also it is very essential to troubleshoot the Mac.

Reset PRAM

PRAM stated as Parameter Random Access Memory stores the crucial information such as the presence of any internal drives, type and number of connected drives, speaker volume, screen resolution etc. If something goes wrong with the Mac and it is not performing well, then PRAM is the foremost step for troubleshooting. To reset PRAM you need to shut down the Mac. After that hold down the four keys i.e. Command button, option key, P and R keys simultaneously till then you hear the startup chime and wait until your Mac reboots. Then after hearing the second startup chime, you can release the keys.

Verbose mode

Using the Verbose mode will hamper the troubleshooting efforts by showing the messy details of Mac during boot. The user can see the rows of text instead of the gray boot screen. So enabling it will simplify the task to solve most of the problems.

Single User Mode

This mode will also do the same activity but instead of finishing the process and return it to OS X login GUI, it will give you with the terminal where you can do the advanced troubleshooting or hard drive repair as well. To boot into Single User Mode, just hold down the Command and S keys simultaneously until the white text appears.

Therefore, the above options will definitely help you to troubleshoot and solve most of the problems of Mac.