Have you noticed that all of sudden you see a delay in the boot up of your OS X computer? It maybe hard to pin down but there seems to be a increase in the boot time. I recently noticed it on my Macbook Pro 13 inch with an SDD drive. It was probably more noticable because of the speed which the computer used to boot with the SSD drive. Well although this maybe a specific and possibly rare circumstance here's how I fixed my problem.
It typically image my computer on a regular basis, in addition to doing a time machine backup. I use a program called SuperDuper by Bruce Lacey. This creates a completely portable drive that I can take and plug into any Mac to allow me to continue to work in case the MacBook Pro fails me.
With any good backup routine you should, on a regular basis, TEST your backups. Doing backups that won't work when needed is not a good thing. So recently I plugged in my external drive and started the computer holding down the option key. This allows me to select which drive to boot from, the internal drive or the external drive (backup).
Well this test must have reset the start drive that OS X defaults to when starting. My delay was coming from the OS searching for the startup drive. I loaded "System Preferences". Under "System" you'll find "Startup Drive". Select your internal hard drive (it should be the silver one, not the yellow one), like the one the arrow points at below.
I know this isn't a common occurance but hopefully it'll help at least one person to save some time on thier boot.

- mark's blog
- Login or register to post comments
