After installing Mountain Lion my iMac boots into a shell

[Robert James]

I installed Mountain Lion on top of Lion and since then two out of three times I turn on my iMAC it boots into a shell. It ends with a #root prompt and if I type 'exit' then MAC OS starts up and runs without problems.

I cannot find out how to stop it doing this - any ideas anyone?

It is a late 2009 21.5 inch iMAC with 4gig RAM, and intel core 2 duo processor.

Thank you
Robert

 

[Cory Cooper]

Try resetting the PRAM at startup:

Hold Option-Command-P-R until you hear the second boot chime. Then, after successful boot, go to Apple Menu > System Preferences > Startup Disk and make sure your internal is highlighted.

Let us know if that doesn't fix it.

Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM

 

[Robert James]

Hello Cory,
Thank you very much for that advice.
It does indeed appear to have fixed the problem. I did as you said and then tried a few shutdowns and boot ups and each time it has booted correctly into MAC OS.

Thank you again for your help - it is very much appreciated!

Kind regards
Robert

 

[Cory Cooper]

Not a problem Robert. Glad it is sorted.

Enjoy!