Mac slow boot caused by “Waiting for DSMOS”

Problem

When you boot your Mac in verbose mode (cmd+V on startup), it hangs on the text “Waiting for DSMOS” and is booting a lot slower than usual.

Solution

  1. Go to your Applications folder.
  2. Open the Utilities folder.
  3. Run Terminal.
  4. Copy and paste the following command into the Terminal window:
    sudo chown root:admin /
  5. Press Enter.
  6. You will need to enter your password and press Enter.
    • It won’t show any characters when you type.
    • If you do not have a password then set one first.

Once done, you can Quit Terminal and restart your computer.

6 comments

  1. Having Finder.app issues and cant even reboot using my Install DVD (Command-C) (Mac 10.6.8)

    Had the initial problem which seems that Time Machine, (infernal Time Machine) caused Finder.app to corrupt, to crash. Can only load with Single USer mode, so am trying to fix. For whatever reason I can’t access my Mac Mini any other way than Terminal

    Hopefully this will work. What is DSMOS, actually? When in Terminal and trying to fix the Finder.app issue, i enter the string: /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder & disown
    and then I get this message from root# Waiting for DSMOS…

    I tried your fix but I get message, “sudo: can’t open /etc/sudoers: Resource temporarily unavailable.

    seems any fix I try with sudo, to fix Finder.app issues, cannot be resolved.

    Would appreciate any comments.

    Will try your solution

    1. Hi Rangdrol,

      DSMOS is short for Don’t Steal Mac OS and is software that prevents Mac OS X being installed on non-Apple manufactured computers.

      When booting from a CD or DVD, you only need to hold down C. You could also try holding alt on startup to select a boot device.

      Either way, you will need to reinstall Snow Leopard. Try the above and see if you can get the disc to work.

      1. Thanks for the quick response. Unfortunately, none of the startup key combos work, not Alt, not the Shift key, not the C, not the D, not Option (Alt), not the Target mode (Firewire, well Target works, but I only have Mac Mini, which is down, and my old G4 which has nothing on it. Plus I can’t access Mac Mini with a Firewire cable because the new mac minis have Firewire 800 cables, and no, I dont have that either.) and I can’t reinstall because I can’t get the CD to load.

        It seems that the Finder.app died, and that’s when the problems started, and nothing works. I managed to fix the disappearing icons from my desktop by inserting some string in terminal, and thought that would do the trick, (string entered in Terminal, which is the only application I can get actuall, from start up, in Single User Mode (Command S)

        “/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder & disown”

        I can only hope that If I buy Lion, then my problems will be taken care of… Luckily, I still have an old G4 laptop, but running 10.3.9 because I dont keep old software…so Im limited to Omni browser, and minimal opportunities when it comes to using other applications.

        In any case, it’s weird that I can’t even load up from my DVD. I tried the Hardware (Command D) and (Command C) keys on two different Mac Mini install disks but no luck.

        I appreciate your help.

        Regards

        Rangdrol

  2. @ Carl Norton

    PS, when I try holding down the Option key (Alt on WIndows) I get a grey screen with a picture of my Hard Drive, with an arrow right underneath that Icon.

    Beneath it There is a bar and when I click on that, it shows me a list of Airport names, and if I click on my own, I can connect to the internet via Airport. However, I am already connected to airport, so I have no idea what this is for. Clicking on the Hard Disck icon, however, only starts up the system, and then leads me back to the blue screen, where nothing happens.

    1. It sounds like you have a faulty disc drive. Perhaps you can try an external USB DVD drive, replace the DVD drive or you could also get a Mac OS X Lion USB install (if your computer supports Lion).

      1. Yes, works fine, but same issue with 2.0, and does it really have to recsan my folders each time I first launch it? That can take a while when you have a lot of old email. 2.0 did not do this.

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