Speeding up os x start-up

F

felizgraham

Registered
Hi,

I'm running an eMac with the latest os x software upgrades. It used to start up within a few seconds when I first bought it. I then put my design software and files on it - it still started up quickly.

However, my girlfriend temporarily stored her video files on my eMac, almost filling the hard drive. We then deleted these video files, returning the eMac to how it was before (only 1/3 hardrive full).

But now it takes nearly five minutes to start-up!!

How can I make the startup super quick again????
 
Pretty straight forward. Go to your 'Applications' folder then to 'Utilities', then selec 'Disk Utility". Pick your harddrive and repair permissions.
If that doesn't help, search on the forum on a how-to to start in single user mode and run fsck (i think).
 
To run fsck, you first need to start up your Mac in single-user mode. Here's how:

1. Restart your Mac.

2. Immediately press and hold the Command and "S" keys.

You'll see a bunch of text begin scrolling on your screen. In a few more seconds, you'll see the Unix command line prompt (#).

You're now in single-user mode.

Now that you're at the # prompt, here's how to run fsck:

1. Type: "fsck -y" (that's fsck-space-minus-y).
(If you're running Panther, v 10.3, then type this "fsck -f"

2. Press Return.

The fsck utility will blast some text onto your screen. If there's damage to your disk, you'll see a message that says:

***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****

If you see this message--and this is extremely important-- repeat running fsck. It is normal to have to run fsck more than once -- the first run's repairs often uncover additional problems..

When fsck finally reports that no problems were found, and the # prompt reappears:

3. Type: "reboot" to restart,

or type "exit" to start up without rebooting.

4. Press Return.

Your Mac should proceed to start up normally to the login window or the Finder.
 
Maybe it has something to do with the hard drive being filled up and then the files deleted. Perhaps the hard drive needs to be 'cleaned' so that the space the deleted files took up is returned to completely 'empty' ???!!?
 
Well, try those things recommended above, as well as clearing your cache. Repairing permissions is going to be something that you'll want to do occassionaly for general maintenance anyway.
If none of that works, then there are some 3rd party tools that these guys here know about that should do the trick.
 
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