Text on boot

iamhunter

I am not sure if you deal with Mac Pro's. I have a Mac Pro that works great one it goes to the OS, but before it boots into the OS it runs what looks like a test screen ( black back ground with white text ) for about two pages then boots normal. Do you have any suggestions on how to get it to boot directly to the OS like it should?

Thank you

John

Hi, and thanks for the post!

It sounds like your Mac Pro is in what's called "verbose mode" and just needs the PRAM reset.

What "verbose mode" is: The Mac OS is based on BSD UNIX, and I don't know if you've ever seen UNIX/LINUX boot up, but there's generally pages and pages of text that scrolls by when it boots. The Mac OS also does this, but the text is masked by the nice grey Apple screen with the progress wheel below it. However, sometimes new logic boards come with verbose mode enabled, which means the text is visible. You can also enable/disable verbose mode in open firmware.

But the easiest way to set it back to normal is to reset the PRAM, because one of the many things a PRAM reset does is switch verbose mode back to the normal mode. To reset the PRAM, power on your machine and IMMEDIATELY hold down option-command-P-R at the same time. If the screen goes white, you weren't quick enough and need to start over. Hold down all four keys until you've heard the chime sound a few times (30 seconds or so), and then release, and hopefully it will boot up normally, and you'll see the Apple logo instead of the text.

If that doesn't help let me know, but I'm 99% sure that is the problem.

Thanks!

John