Black screen with white text on startup.

[bt10]

Hi everybody,

I just installed Mountain Lion on my iMac (24-inch, Early 2008), everything was alright the first day, restarted and shut down normally, no problems at all.

However the next day (and 2 days on), I turned it on, the white screen with the Apple logo appears with the chime, and then it just goes to a black screen with white text, and I have to type in "exit" for it to continue booting.

Looks exactly like this:
(http://www.blogcdn.com/www.tuaw.com/media/2010/10/macbootycall-4.jpg)

The same thing comes up when shutting down as well, but I don't have to type anything.

What could be causing this?
I hope I've given enough information,
Thanks for the help in advance.
BT

 

[kidrobot714]

i had the same exact problem yesterday.

history: i had mountain lion osx on my macbook but decided to do a FULL restore so i can start off fresh again. I deleted the partion by accident.

result: all i did was installed LION over, then went into the macbook, installed updates, then installed mountain lion. hope this help.

 

[bt10]

Hi there,

Thanks for your input!

I'll definitely give that a go, and come back with the results.

BT

 

[Slydude]

When I first read this post I did not realize that the Mac boots properly if you type "exit". It seems like perhaps your mac thinks you want to boot in "verbose" mode. Try this before doing a reinstall.

 

[bt10]

YES YES THANK YOU Slydude!
Worked liked a charm, and glad it did, was dreading the reinstall.

BT

 

[Slydude]

Glad that helped. Reinstalls don't seem to be nearly as big a pain in OS X as what some of my Windows buddies go through but the process can still be very time consuming. I try to avoid it whenever possible.

 

[bt10]

IT'S BACK.
Well it, actually came back the next day, however I had to make OS X boot discs to go for the reinstall.
I then tried reinstalling Mountain Lion again, which didn't work,
So I went for the reinstall of Lion, but it said "You can't upgrade this version of mac os x because a newer version is installed"

How do I go about reinstalling?

Any more is much appreciated!
BT

 

[cradom]

To reinstall a prior version you need to reformat the drive.

 

[buzzer107]

Hi everybody,

I just installed Mountain Lion on my iMac (24-inch, Early 2008), everything was alright the first day, restarted and shut down normally, no problems at all.

However the next day (and 2 days on), I turned it on, the white screen with the Apple logo appears with the chime, and then it just goes to a black screen with white text, and I have to type in "exit" for it to continue booting.

Looks exactly like this:
(http://www.blogcdn.com/www.tuaw.com/media/2010/10/macbootycall-4.jpg)

The same thing comes up when shutting down as well, but I don't have to type anything.

What could be causing this?
I hope I've given enough information,
Thanks for the help in advance.
BT

I have exactly the same problem. It would appear that it has to be shut down for some hours before the fault re-occurs. ( How it knows it has been off for any period is beyond me )

After you have entered "exit" and it starts up, if you shut it down and start it again it will boot up as normal but not if you leave it off for a length of time.

Mine has done this since installing Mountain Lion also.

 

[chscag]

Try resetting the System Management Controller. Easy to do on an iMac:

Shut it down, pull the AC plug from the wall main socket and let the machine remain off for about 15 minutes. Plug it back in and boot it up.

 

[buzzer107]

Problem remains I'm afraid. It must surely be something to do with Mountain Lion

 

[Louay]

Same here, i solved it

I had the same problem, iMac, mid-2009, the problem seemed to be with the bluetooth, so now i only switch my wireless keyobard and mouse once it's booted up properly. black screen and white text didnt show up at all