[prashant]

Starting up your computer with Mac OS X

You start up a Macintosh by pressing any of the following:

1) Power button on the computer.

2) Power key on the keyboard, if the keyboard has that option.

3) Power button on some Apple flat-panel displays (on some display models, the power button only turns the display on or off)



Figure 1: A progress gauge and a series of messages report on the startup process.

While Mac OS X is loading, you see the familiar Happy Mac icon in the center of the screen. You also see a multicolored disc in the corner of the screen and it rolls, indicating that the computer is busy.

Soon a Mac OS X greeting appears together with a gauge that measures startup progress, and a sequence of brief messages reports steps in the startup process. The spinning disk changes to an arrow-shaped pointer. This pointer tracks mouse movement, but clicking the mouse button has no effect at this time. Figure 1 demonstrates this part of the startup process.

Your computer can be set to start up with Mac OS 9 instead of Mac OS X. In this case, a Mac OS 9 greeting appears during startup and the Mac OS X environment is not available after startup.

What happens next depends on whether your computer has been configured for automatic or manual login. If your computer is configured for manual login, Mac OS X displays a login window and you must provide an account name and password before the startup process can continue.

If your computer is configured for automatic login, you do not see the login screen. Instead the startup process continues, and eventually you see the Mac OS X menu bar at the top of the screen.