Mac OS X start progress bar stuck at 100%

[ShadoGiow]

Hi everyone, I have a Mac OS X with high sierra I think. I have also bootcamp with windows, this partition start frawless but the OSX remain stuck at 100% of the progress bar. Now I know that I have this iMac full , with very little space remained of memory. The problem is: I have a ton of work in the windows partition, and I want to resolve this problem without touching anything for the windows partition. What I can do?

Ps. Sorry for the bad English, i’m Italian

 

[ferrarr]

Have you held option (maybe option+R) down when starting up?

 

[ShadoGiow]

No, what it does? Btw my start partition is for windows, I start the Mac OS X part with pressing alt. Can I do your command with this?

 

[ShadoGiow]

Have you held option (maybe option+R) down when starting up?

I’ve tried it but nothing happened. Please help me I need this for work and i’m Starting panicking.

EDIT: now the Mac don’t ask me which account I want, and it boots with a gray background, no finder, no dock. Only safari opened and nothing more. I can’t access anywhere in this mode , even inside the preferences.

 

[chscag]

Your problem is a full hard drive. You painted yourself into a corner and the only way out now is to start cleaning out the hard drive to make room so the system can boot. To make matters worse, you were booting straight to Windows using boot camp.

If you have a backup of both macOS and Windows, you can reinstall macOS and then Windows. But again, you will need to allow at least 10-15% of the hard drive as free space.

No backup? Then you're probably looking at the loss of data.

 

[ShadoGiow]

Your problem is a full hard drive. You painted yourself into a corner and the only way out now is to start cleaning out the hard drive to make room so the system can boot. To make matters worse, you were booting straight to Windows using boot camp.

If you have a backup of both macOS and Windows, you can reinstall macOS and then Windows. But again, you will need to allow at least 10-15% of the hard drive as free space.

No backup? Then you're probably looking at the loss of data.

I don’t mind the lost of data on the Mac partition. I only want to restart again my Mac OS X part normali (even empity) without touching the windows partition..

 

[MacInWin]

Do you have anything you can boot from externally? A USB drive with the OS installed? A clone backup? You can boot from that and then clean off some space on the drive from there.

 

[ShadoGiow]

I have a usb, I must simply put the installation of High Sierra on the usb and then what?

 

[MacInWin]

No. Because your Mac won't boot, what you need is a USB with the operating system ALREADY installed. At this point because your Mac won't boot, you cannot install the OS to the USB drive.

But if you do have a bootable USB drive, attach it to the Mac and then power up holding down the Option key and select the USB drive when it appears. The boot will be very slow, but at the end you should be able to use Finder to go to the Mac drive partition with the High Sierra data and delete stuff until you have sufficient space to allow it to boot.

 

[ShadoGiow]

But my Mac partition now start but with only safari functional. No wallpaper, no finder, no dock, only safari opened two icon top left: flag of my language and wifi signal. The top status bar allow me only to quit safari. Once done that I can’t click anything. I’ve tried to download a file for watch it on the finder, but I can’t even download a file because the partition doesn’t allow that. *** I have done

 

[ferrarr]

You are only booting into the Recovery partition, or Internet Recovery. You can try to run Disk Utility > First Aid.

Start here, About macOS Recovery - Apple Support, or here, How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery - Apple Support. If the drive is still functioning, you should be able to reinstall macOS without erasing any data, but getting into Boot Camp/winOS may be an issue after the reinstall.

What are the specs/type of Mac you are using?

 

[ShadoGiow]

You are only booting into the Recovery partition, or Internet Recovery. You can try to run Disk Utility > First Aid.

Start here, About macOS Recovery - Apple Support, or here, How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery - Apple Support. If the drive is still functioning, you should be able to reinstall macOS without erasing any data, but getting into Boot Camp/winOS may be an issue after the reinstall.

What are the specs/type of Mac you are using?

I don’t know, it’s a iMac that I don’t use so much. If this can damage the windows partition I can’t do that...
By the way I can’t go to utility disk, in that mode I can’t do anything expect quit safari and then force shut down

 

[ferrarr]

Try Safe mode, Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support.

 

[ShadoGiow]

Try Safe mode, Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support.

Tried that, now the progress bar has returned and stay slow and I think stuck at 100% when it reach that.

 

[ShadoGiow]

No. Because your Mac won't boot, what you need is a USB with the operating system ALREADY installed. At this point because your Mac won't boot, you cannot install the OS to the USB drive.

But if you do have a bootable USB drive, attach it to the Mac and then power up holding down the Option key and select the USB drive when it appears. The boot will be very slow, but at the end you should be able to use Finder to go to the Mac drive partition with the High Sierra data and delete stuff until you have sufficient space to allow it to boot.

Can I explore the Mac partition on the windows partition for deleting stuff and free space? Isn’t that a possible solutions?

I’m sure the problem is the full hard drive, I need to go there and delete something!

 

[Rod]

I'm sorry to say that it sounds like you have filled the HD with too much data for it to function.
I believe you will need to boot the device from an external HD with a compatible macOS on it.
This could be a USB thumb drive with a macOS installer on it or a bootable clone or an External HD with macOS on it, preferably the same OS you have on your iMac.
Boot Camp is an Apple application, you need it to run Windows. If your macOS partition is full it will not be able to run Boot Camp and your Windows partition will cease to function.
Even if you can obtain an external bootable source the process of cleaning up the iMac will be very slow because it must use the hardware in the iMac to perform any operation.


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[ShadoGiow]

I'm sorry to say that it sounds like you have filled the HD with too much data for it to function.
I believe you will need to boot the device from an external HD with a compatible macOS on it.
This could be a USB thumb drive with a macOS installer on it or a bootable clone or an External HD with macOS on it, preferably the same OS you have on your iMac.
Boot Camp is an Apple application, you need it to run Windows. If your macOS partition is full it will not be able to run Boot Camp and your Windows partition will cease to function.
Even if you can obtain an external bootable source the process of cleaning up the iMac will be very slow because it must use the hardware in the iMac to perform any operation.


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Ok so I need to install Mac OS X on a hard drive , I can’t do other ways...
anyway my windows partition with bootcamp start normally

 

[Rod]

Ah, well that's good. I would suggest you make a backup of your windows data.
To answer you question: In theory it is possible but difficult and risky. To use Windows tools to remove a Mac partition is not something I would be willing to try on a primary device.
Having said that I believe you can use Windows partition tools to completely remove the OSX partition see;
windows - Remove Mac OS X partition from Boot Camp - Super User
Please understand I do not advise this.
There is a possibility that you may end up with a "brick".
Obviously you wouldn't even think of doing this without backing up everything first but a backup isn't much good to you without a computer to put it on.
My advice is to take it to a Mac repair shop where they will have Mac operating systems on portable drives.



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[ShadoGiow]

Ah, well that's good. I would suggest you make a backup of your windows data.
To answer you question: In theory it is possible but difficult and risky. To use Windows tools to remove a Mac partition is not something I would be willing to try on a primary device.
Having said that I believe you can use Windows partition tools to completely remove the OSX partition see;
windows - Remove Mac OS X partition from Boot Camp - Super User
Please understand I do not advise this.
There is a possibility that you may end up with a "brick".
Obviously you wouldn't even think of doing this without backing up everything first but a backup isn't much good to you without a computer to put it on.
My advice is to take it to a Mac repair shop where they will have Mac operating systems on portable drives.



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I have a friend with a MacBook. Can I do something with his help? It’s a valid external device for doing the job of delete something to free space?