HOWTO: Boot into safe mode (10.2 or later)

**eric2006** · February 18th, 2006, 10:17 AM

This is a short and sweet how-to on how to boot into safe mode. It saved be a LOT of downtime recently, when I installed a program that caused some serious errors. I booted into safe mode, uninstalled, and it was fixed!

1. Shut down completely
2. Press the power button
3. Wait for the startup chime
4. Immediately after (not before) the startup chime, press and hold the shift key. Do this until the grey apple loading screen shows up.
5. Wait while safe mode boots up. It will take a lot longer than regular OS X.
6. Log in (press shift-enter instead of enter after putting in your password to log in without login items.)
7. You are in safe mode

Safe mode will run disk repair, and ignores the cache of kernel extensions
The regular GUI is used in safe mode by default

Related Apple help files:

Booting into Safe Mode:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107393
Safe Mode takes longer than regular startup:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107394

If there are any errors in this tutorial, please post the correction(s), and I will add them.

**schemadesign** · February 20th, 2006, 08:54 AM

many thanks for your tips.

i pray they work when i get home - if you could grab some wood near you and touch it for me.

Cheers

Carl

**Lt Major Burns** · February 20th, 2006, 09:07 AM

shift is also used to log in without login items. instead of hitting enter after entering your password at the login screen, shift+enter will load without log in items. useful if there's a pesky corrupt login item.

**eric2006** · February 20th, 2006, 09:28 AM

Originally Posted by Lt Major Burns

shift is also used to log in without login items. instead of hitting enter after entering your password at the login screen, shift+enter will load without log in items. useful if there's a pesky corrupt login item.

Thanks, added that.

**Natobasso** · February 21st, 2006, 05:03 PM

Actually safe mode boots a lot faster than regular mode because you don't have to load the OS X bells and whistles. fsck -f to force a system check, type "reboot" to reboot. Hold command + s before the chime and keep it held till you get a black screen. This is the unix shell, I believe, and where you enter the fsck and reboot commands.

**schemadesign** · February 22nd, 2006, 03:16 AM

It is my sad duty to report my imac is dead. It passed away on Monday.

It was a quick death - loud clunking noise followed by what sounded like a shortness of breath - flatlined with a grey screen.

Didn't even get to the white apple logo.

I would like to re-incarnate it - is it possible to change the hard drive? I can't afford burial costs.

I hope you will all join me in a minutes silence today at 11am.

Regards

Carl

**Satcomer** · February 22nd, 2006, 04:03 AM

Originally Posted by schemadesign

It is my sad duty to report my imac is dead. It passed away on Monday.

It was a quick death - loud clunking noise followed by what sounded like a shortness of breath - flatlined with a grey screen.

Didn't even get to the white apple logo.

I would like to re-incarnate it - is it possible to change the hard drive? I can't afford burial costs.

I hope you will all join me in a minutes silence today at 11am.

Regards

Carl

The hard drive has had a hard drive psychical hardware breakdown. Now you learned the ultimate computer lesson, always backup! Now, yes hard drives can be replaced in all Macs. You can get a new hard drive over at OWC and get instructions (with pictures) off the net by searching for a "how to" through Google.