Choosing to launch mac os. Mac OS boot modes

If your Mac freezes during operation and is not responding, this should help. forced reboot. To do this, press and hold the power button until the Mac screen goes dark, and then turn on the computer as usual.

Attention! With this shutdown, unsaved data in applications will most likely be lost.

2. Removing removable media

Eject (⏏) or F12

When a Mac with an optical drive and a disk inside crashes, the system may fail to boot from it and may freeze. To eject media, press the ⏏ (Eject) or F12 button on your keyboard, or press and hold the mouse or trackpad button.

3. Selecting a boot disk

If your Mac has multiple drives installed and you can't boot the system from the default drive, you can call up the selection dialog boot disks and select the desired media manually. To do this, press and hold the ⌥ (Option) key immediately after turning on the computer.

4. Boot from CD or DVD

In a similar way you can give Mac command boot from disk from the built-in or external optical drive. In this case, press and hold the C key on your keyboard.

5. Download from server

⌥N (Option + N)

When the local one has a NetBoot server on which boot image system, you can try to start your Mac using it. To do this, press and hold the key combination ⌥N (Option + N).

On computers with Apple processor T2 this download method does not work.

6. Run in external disk mode

If you don’t want to start your Mac, you can switch its mode external drive and copy important files, connecting to another computer via a FireWire, Thunderbolt or USB-C cable. To start in this mode, press and hold the T key while turning on.

7. Run in detailed logging mode

⌘V (Command + V)

By default, macOS does not display a detailed startup log, showing only a loading bar. If problems arise, you can enable a detailed log, which will help you understand at what stage of the download the error occurs. To do this, when turning on, press the combination ⌘V (Command + V).

8. Start in Safe Mode

When Mac won't boot into normal mode, it's worth trying to start safe mode. It checks the disk and turns on only basic components system, which allows you to determine which specific programs or services are causing errors. To download to safe mode Press and hold the ⇧ (Shift) key.

9. Single-player mode

⌘S (Command + S)

This mode launches the system in an even more stripped-down version - only the command line is available in it. Nevertheless, with its help, specialists will be able to diagnose and correct errors if they exist. To launch in single-user mode, press the key combination ⌘S (Command + S).

10. Run diagnostics

macOS has built-in hardware diagnostic software that can help identify hardware problems. To run diagnostics, press and hold the D key.

11. Running network diagnostics

⌥D (Option + D)

If the boot disk is damaged, you will not be able to run the diagnostic test. In such cases it will help network diagnostics, which allows you to run the test over the Internet. To do this, press the combination ⌥D (Option + D)

12. Recovery mode

⌘R (Command + R)

When you boot into recovery mode, you can access Disk Utility, reinstall macOS, and restore data from the created backup copy. To enter recovery mode, press and hold ⌘R (Command + R).

If your Mac has a firmware password, you will be prompted to enter it.

13. Network recovery mode

⌥⌘R (Option + Command + R)

A mode similar to the previous one, which, if the Internet is available, allows you to reinstall macOS by downloading the system distribution directly from Apple servers. To use it, press ⌥⌘R (Option + Command + R).

14. Reset NVRAM or PRAM

⌥⌘PR (Option + Command + P + R)

If you're having problems with your display, speakers, cooling fans, or other Mac components, you can try resetting your NVRAM or PRAM to resolve them. To do this, at startup, press and hold the ⌥⌘PR keys (Option + Command + P + R).

If your Mac has a firmware password set, this method will not work.

15. Reset SMC

More radical way reset - return to standard parameters system management controller (SMC). It is used if the previous method did not help. Depending on your Mac model SMC reset performed differently.

On desktop computers You need to turn off your Mac, unplug the power cable and wait 15 seconds. Then reconnect the cable, wait five seconds and press the power button to turn on.

On laptops with a removable battery You need to turn off your Mac, remove the battery, and then press and hold the power button for five seconds. After this, you need to install the battery and press the button to turn it on.

On laptops with non-removable battery You need to turn off the Mac and simultaneously press and hold the power button for ten seconds Shift buttons+ Command + Option. After this, release all keys and press the power button to turn on.

On MacBook Pro With Touch ID, the sensor button is also the power button.

If your Mac freezes during operation and is unresponsive, a force restart should help. To do this, press and hold the power button until the Mac screen goes dark, and then turn on the computer as usual.

Attention! With this shutdown, unsaved data in applications will most likely be lost.

2. Removing removable media

Eject (⏏) or F12

When a Mac with an optical drive and a disk inside crashes, the system may fail to boot from it and may freeze. To eject media, press the ⏏ (Eject) or F12 button on your keyboard, or press and hold the mouse or trackpad button.

3. Selecting a boot disk

If your Mac has multiple drives installed and you can't boot the system from the default drive, you can call up the boot drive selection dialog and manually select the desired media. To do this, press and hold the ⌥ (Option) key immediately after turning on the computer.

4. Boot from CD or DVD

Similarly, you can tell your Mac to boot from a disc from its built-in or external optical drive. In this case, press and hold the C key on your keyboard.

5. Download from server

⌥N (Option + N)

When the local one has a NetBoot server on which the bootable system image is located, you can try to start the Mac using it. To do this, press and hold the key combination ⌥N (Option + N).

This boot method does not work on computers with an Apple T2 processor.

6. Run in external disk mode

If you don’t want to start your Mac, you can switch it to external drive mode and copy important files by connecting it to another computer via a FireWire, Thunderbolt or USB-C cable. To start in this mode, press and hold the T key while turning on.

7. Run in detailed logging mode

⌘V (Command + V)

By default, macOS does not display a detailed startup log, showing only a loading bar. If problems arise, you can enable a detailed log, which will help you understand at what stage of the download the error occurs. To do this, when turning on, press the combination ⌘V (Command + V).

8. Start in Safe Mode

When your Mac won't boot normally, you might want to try starting Safe Mode. It checks the disk and turns on only the basic components of the system, which allows you to determine which specific programs or services are causing errors. To boot into Safe Mode, press and hold the ⇧ (Shift) key.

9. Single-player mode

⌘S (Command + S)

This mode launches the system in an even more stripped-down version - only the command line is available in it. Nevertheless, with its help, specialists will be able to diagnose and correct errors if they exist. To launch in single-user mode, press the key combination ⌘S (Command + S).

10. Run diagnostics

macOS has built-in hardware diagnostic software that can help identify hardware problems. To run diagnostics, press and hold the D key.

11. Running network diagnostics

⌥D (Option + D)

If the boot disk is damaged, you will not be able to run the diagnostic test. In such cases, network diagnostics will help, allowing you to run the test via the Internet. To do this, press the combination ⌥D (Option + D)

12. Recovery mode

⌘R (Command + R)

When you boot into recovery mode, you can access Disk Utility, reinstall macOS, and restore data from a backup. To enter recovery mode, press and hold ⌘R (Command + R).

If your Mac has a firmware password, you will be prompted to enter it.

13. Network recovery mode

⌥⌘R (Option + Command + R)

A mode similar to the previous one, which, if the Internet is available, allows you to reinstall macOS by downloading the system distribution directly from Apple servers. To use it, press ⌥⌘R (Option + Command + R).

14. Reset NVRAM or PRAM

⌥⌘PR (Option + Command + P + R)

If you're having problems with your display, speakers, cooling fans, or other Mac components, you can try resetting your NVRAM or PRAM to resolve them. To do this, at startup, press and hold the ⌥⌘PR keys (Option + Command + P + R).

If your Mac has a firmware password set, this method will not work.

15. Reset SMC

A more radical reset method is to return the system management controller (SMC) to default settings. It is used if the previous method did not help. Depending on model Mac reset SMC is performed in different ways.

On desktop computers You need to turn off your Mac, unplug the power cable and wait 15 seconds. Then reconnect the cable, wait five seconds and press the power button to turn on.

On laptops with a removable battery You need to turn off your Mac, remove the battery, and then press and hold the power button for five seconds. After this, you need to install the battery and press the button to turn it on.

On laptops with a non-removable battery You need to turn off the Mac and simultaneously press and hold the Shift + Command + Option buttons for ten seconds with the power button. After this, release all keys and press the power button to turn on.

On a MacBook Pro with Touch ID, the sensor button is also the power button.

Apple's policy, according to which the company installs its own operating system on computers produced under its brand, makes them extremely stable. By purchasing a MacBook and regularly updating the OS, you may never encounter the need for it. reinstallation. If you have Internet access, the system can be easily reinstalled over the network. If circumstances require installing macOS from a flash drive, you need to do this correctly.

Since 2013, Apple has stopped selling the operating system to users. When purchasing any Mac, be it a laptop or mini version, you get macOS for rent and are provided with free updates for the entire period of use of the device.

  1. We find on Dock icon App store Store and open it.
  1. On home page V right side, under parameters account, there is a link where you can go to the site with the current OS. At this moment latest version– 10.3 High Sierra.

  1. Click on the “Download” button. The distribution weighs more than 5 GB, so the time it takes to receive it will depend on the speed of the connection used.

  1. When the download is complete, the installer will automatically launch.

  1. IN this moment we don't need her. Since we are going to create an offline bootable media, we need to close it. Click on the program window to top panel controls are displayed. Select the marked item. A similar operation can be performed with the keyboard shortcut ⌘Q. In macOS, this is a standard shortcut that allows you to close any active window.

Old OS versions

If you want to install another, more old version operating system you can also find them in App Store. El Capitan, Yosemite or Mountain Lion are placed in the purchase section, provided that they have been used before. This is due to licensing policy companies. The operating systems shown in the screenshot are considered purchased, and subsequent ones are rented by the user from Apple.

Creating a bootable USB flash drive

To create installation disk on a MacBook, just use the terminal. macOS works perfectly with the Windows FS and does not require the installation of Transmac analogues. The NTFS format is supported out of the box in read mode, and FAT32 and exFAT are fully supported.

You will have to format the flash drive if it uses any Linux file system, for example, ext3. Before use removable drive In any case, it must be cleared of the information on it.

Formatting

Formatting in macOS is done using Disk Utility. You can find it by opening Launchpad in the Others folder or using Finder. Let's choose the second option as it is more convenient. Traditionally, a flash drive for modern operating systems should be at least 8 GB.

  1. Open Finder and select “Applications” in the navigation area. Open the folder marked in the screenshot.

  1. Select the specified utility.

  1. We are looking for external drives. Select the name of the flash drive specified by the manufacturer, highlighting it. In the top control menu, the “Erase” button is activated. Click on it to open the next dialogue.

  1. The system will automatically offer us the format and layout of the sections. They should match those shown in the screenshot. To clean and format the flash drive with the selected parameters, press the marked button.

Now on external media There is zero information left and you can write a distribution kit on it.

Recording a distribution

Downloaded by us in the App Store file is not ISO way. This is a full-fledged installation wizard with its own set of utilities. For this reason, the system places it in the programs folder and not in downloads. From there we will record it onto external media.

  1. We return to the “Utilities” folder and launch “Terminal”.

  1. Enter the following write command on behalf of the system administrator:
sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia —volume /Volumes/Kingstone

Quotes are not required, but instead of Kingstone we indicate the name of the flash drive used.

  1. Enter the password. The symbols will not be displayed. We complete the set by pressing the Enter button.
  1. The system will ask you for confirmation to erase the selected volume. Type “Y” and press the enter key.

  1. Before copying data, the system erases the flash drive.

  1. The recording ends with the appearance information messages about the creation bootable media and transferring the data required by the installer to it.

The write command syntax varies for each distribution. Therefore, if you are going to make a flash drive for reinstalling macOS, other than High Sierra, please visit the Apple Support page provided. The finished command from there can be immediately copied to the terminal.

Installing macOS

By connecting the media to USB port, perform a reboot. IN Mac computers The usual BIOS is not used, so nothing additional needs to be configured.

  1. Our task is to prevent the computer from booting from the SSD and launching the initial volume selection menu. Therefore, immediately upon reboot, hold down the “Option” key. Hold it until the dialogue shown in the screenshot appears. Windows volume will be present if it is installed on the partition Boot Camp. Here you will need to translate the specified arrow symbol from Macintosh HD to the installer icon.

  1. Select the language in which menus and dialogs will be displayed.

  1. For a “clean” installation, we need to open Disk Utility.

  1. We select the volume on which we are going to install the OS and erase the data. The steps are similar to what we did when formatting the flash drive.

  1. Close Disk Utility and select the marked item.

  1. The OS installation wizard starts.

  1. Select the Macintosh HD volume.

  1. Fill out the fields to log in with your Apple ID details.

  1. At this stage, you can transfer information from a backup copy, if one was made. For a “clean” installation, select the specified item.

Then we just have to study license agreement and configure regional settings. During the installation process, the computer will reboot itself several times, after which you will be taken to the fresh macOS desktop.

Finally

As you can see, installing an operating room Apple systems It's quite simple to do. No need to create bootable media third party programs or special knowledge, and ready-made commands can be found on the technical support website.

Video instructions

You can watch the entire system installation process in more detail in the video below.

To boot your Mac in standard mode, simply click on Power button. But this is not the only option to boot your computer. Exists more than a dozen loading modes Mac, some of which will be useful to you in case of serious problems with your computer, others for transferring information to another Mac, and others for loading from other partitions or DVDs. To enable these modes when you turn on the computer, you need to hold down certain keys on the keyboard. In this article, we decided to collect all possible keyboard combinations that affect Mac boot.

In order for Mac to understand you correctly, you need to hold down the keys immediately after turning on the computer (when rebooting, immediately after the monitor goes off) and hold them until the apple logo or other symbols appear on the screen.

Alt (Option)

Shows selection menu boot disk. Allows you to boot from a DVD or Boot Camp partition where Windows is installed.

C

Without extra menus will boot your Mac from CD/DVD.

N

Mac network boot: it will try to boot from hard drive another computer connected via an Ethernet cable. Another Mac needs to be configured first (this is a topic for another discussion).

T

Boots the Mac into external disk mode. Another Mac connected to yours via a FireWire cable will have access to hard drive your Mac, and will be able to read any information from it. The option is very convenient when transferring information and for troubleshooting when the Mac cannot boot on its own. The FireWire logo will appear on the screen of a Mac booted into external disk mode:

D

Starts an automatic test of the health of your Mac hardware. For this, the first of installation DVDs that came with your Mac must be inserted into your computer's disk drive. An icon will appear on the screen:

Eject key, F12 or touchpad button

Ejects the disk remaining in the Mac's disk drive.

6+4

Shift

Safe boot mode for Mac. Only core kernel extensions are loaded, all other load objects are disabled. If, after installing some programs or drivers, your Mac does not boot normally, it is quite possible that you can boot into safe mode and remove the culprit program.

Cmd+V

Detailed boot mode. The Mac boots as usual, but instead gray screen with an apple you will see white text running across a black screen. These are all diagnostic messages that can usually be used to guess what is preventing your Mac from booting.

Сmd+S

Command line mode. At first it looks like verbose mode, but the difference is that the Mac will not load to completion in this case. After the diagnostic messages, you will see the command line on a black screen. Hammering into her necessary commands, most often you can fix Mac boot problems. You will learn how and what to enter after mastering our series of articles about the Terminal.

Alt (Option)+Cmd+P+R

You will have to press these four keys in case of problems with the Mac's permanent memory. The keyboard shortcut will reset that part of the computer's memory that is not erased when turned off and is stored separately from the hard drive (NVRAM and PRAM). It contains the following settings:

  • AppleTalk status
  • Serial Port Configuration
  • Alarm Settings
  • Program and system fonts
  • Serial Printer Location
  • Character repetition speed when typing on the keyboard
  • Delay before repeating when typing on the keyboard
  • Speaker volume
  • Execution speed double click mice
  • Cursor blink rate
  • Mouse pointer speed
  • Boot volume
  • Menu flicker frequency
  • Monitor color depth
  • Virtual memory
  • Disk cache

If some of these settings behave strangely, do not change, or, on the contrary, have become corrupted and do not want to be corrected, then resetting NVRAM and PRAM will certainly help you.

Most of these keyboard shortcuts relevant only for relatively new Macs (2006 and later) based Intel processors, Although Shift, C, Cmd+S and Cmd+V work on almost all Macs.

Let's say right away: these are not all boot modes. Some of them do not have keyboard shortcuts, but are enabled by editing the main system boot parameters file - com.apple.Boot.plist. We will tell you how (and most importantly, why) to do this later.

operating room Mac system OS X is one of the most stable systems. If you downloaded it, then weeks, or even months, may pass before the next reboot. But sometimes there are situations when you need to boot your computer in safe mode or external disk mode, or simply boot into another OS, for example, Windows, if of course you have it installed.

In this article we will talk about special modes booting computers with Mac OS, as well as how to boot into them. To use these methods, you need to hold down the key combinations indicated in each mode as soon as you hear the sound of the operating system loading.

Selecting a boot disk

If you need to boot from an external drive or flash drive, or have several installed on your computer operating systems and you want to boot into one of them, then you need to hold down the ⌥Option(Alt) key on your keyboard when booting, after which a menu with a disk selection will appear in front of you.


Boot from CD or DVD

If your iMac or MacBook Pro has optical drive CD/DVD and you want to boot from it, then hold down the C key when starting. IN this method You will bypass the menu with the choice of disks to boot and will immediately start booting from the CD/DVD disc.

Running from a NetBoot image (netboot)

Booting in Target Disk mode

If your Mac cannot boot on its own due to some problem, you can use it in external drive mode by connecting it to another computer with OS X installed via FireWire or Thunderbolt. After which you will receive full access to his hard drive and you can transfer any information from it. To boot your Mac in Target Disk mode, use the T key.


Running Apple Hardware Test

This mode download makes it possible to check your computer hardware for possible problems in the hardware. By pressing the D key during boot, you can run such diagnostics.

Booting in Safe Mode

This download method, compared to the Apple Hardware Test, makes it possible to find problems directly in the software part of the system. In this mode, only the main functions of the system that are necessary for its operation are loaded, other boot objects are disabled. To boot your computer into Safe mode Mode, you need to press and hold the ⇧Shift key until a screen with a loading indicator appears.

Boot with display of service information (Verbose Mode)

When using this method you will be able to observe on the screen Mac process loading with display of service messages. This mode is good because if any error occurs when normal download, You will be able to determine at what stage it appears. You can boot into this mode using the keyboard shortcut ⌘Cmd + V

Boot with Command Line Support (Single User)

This mode, like Verbose Mode, is also intended for identifying and troubleshooting problems; only when loading in Single User mode, after all service messages are displayed, you will have to work with command line. Therefore, this method is intended only for experienced users and to use it you need to hold down the key combination ⌘Cmd + S when loading