Hello,

I have a MacBook Pro 2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo (with Mac 10.4.8) that has recently began to take a very long time to start up. Because the unit goes for days between restarts or shutdowns, it is hard to pinpoint what may have lead up to this condition. Here is the series of events when the MacBook Pro is starting up:

- The unit enters and exits the gray Apple screen in the usual time frame.
- The default Desktop picture pops up and the hard drive can be heard working heavily for an average of six minutes.
- The Desktop picture changes to my setting, the Dock loads, and the remainder of the items load in the usual time frame.

I have tried starting up in Safe Boot mode, as well as experimenting with items in the Startup Folder without any change. I have further run the MacBook Pro through DiskWarrior, Disk Genius, and TechTool Deluxe without any signs of trouble being reported. All Apple and other software is up to date. Otherwise, the unit works great the rest of the time.

Aren’t there logs that could help identify what is taking so much time at startup? If I have discovered this data, I just don’t know what I am reading. Any other suggestions here?

First of all, stop using Disk Warrior. It is a great, great app but Alsoft has not updated it for Intel Macs and I think that it's too risky to use in your situation. Drive Genius (that's what you meant, right?) does work for Intel but make sure that you're using the latest version. TechTool Pro has also been updated for Intel and you should be using version 4.5.1 or higher. I don't know anything about version numbers with TechTool Deluxe.

In the meantime, I would suggest executing the tasks that are checked by default (no others) in the Automation tab of OnyX 1.7.5 and rebooting. This may clear some crud out of the system and speed things up.

Jon,

Thanks for the suggestion. I had tried OnyX (as well as Cocktail) before I posted, but didn't mention it.

It seems as though there is some way to reboot and see all the background events in text as it happens. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

You can start up in Verbose Mode. That will show you all the things that are happening during startup. You won't be able to save any of them so read fast. You might come up with a clue if something appears to be hanging. After all the gobbledygook is finished, you will be booted normally.