TUAW Tip: keyboard shortcuts during Mac OS X startup

For today's TUAW Tip, I thought I'd cover some of the basic essentials for starting up your Mac, especially for recent switchers who feel naked and lost without their BIOS. I compiled the list I have here from Magical Macintosh Key Sequences (which Dave mentioned last September), Apple's own keyboard shortcut documentation and personal experience:

X during startup - Force Mac OS X startup
option - (eventually) brings up a screen with startup volume choices
Option-Command-Shift-Delete - Bypass primary startup volume and seek a different startup volume (such as a CD or external disk)
C - Start up from a CD that has a system folder
N - Attempt to start up from a compatible network server (NetBoot)
T - Start up in FireWire Target Disk mode (very handy for plugging your Mac into another as an external hard drive)
Shift - start up in Safe Boot mode and temporarily disable login items and non-essential kernel extension files (Mac OS X 10.2 and later)
Command-V - Start up in Verbose mode.
Command-S - Start up in Single-User mode
cmd-opt-p-r - Zap PRAM. Hold down until second chime.
cmd-opt-n-v - Clear NV RAM. Similar to reset-all in Open Firmware.
cmd-opt-o-f - Boot into open firmware
hold mouse click - force eject a CD/DVD

While this by no means is a definitive list (and I'm not sure if every one transfers over to the new Intel Macs), it should get you started with what your Mac is capable of on startup. Feel free to add your own in the comments. One word of caution, however: some of these shortcuts aren't meant to be used on a daily basis. For example, Apple doesn't recommend (and neither do I) that you use the Zap PRAM or Clear NV RAM shortcuts any old time your Mac starts acting funny; those are mainly for situation-specific troubleshooting circumstances.

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Source: http://davespicks.com/writing/programming/mackeys.html

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TUAW Tips

For today's TUAW Tip, I thought I'd cover some of the basic essentials for starting up your Mac, especially for recent switchers who...

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MOR

Talk about off-topic!

I've noticed that keyboards tend to lose whichever letter is typed the most, I've seen this before, but it's always a different letter. The user of that keyboard probably has a password or name that starts with an "a" that he/she types all the time.

April 15 2006 at 4:35 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Fazal

@ Mark & Sean
The only way to safegaurd against someone else trying to boot your machine as a dumb drive is to place a firmware password on your Machine. There is a paper on the Apple support site on how to do this - http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106482 - Although written for 10.1 - it works for any 10.x after too.

March 28 2006 at 7:46 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Johan

A collegue of mine have the exact same wear on his keyboard. It seems like the A and S keys are subject to withstand less wear than say D, F, J and K, since these are resting keys... and it seems like the iBook is the problem child here... our powerBooks withstands more usage than the iBook keyboard.

Or is this just proof that my colleague (and you?) tend to write using acidic fluids rather than fingers whenever you both use the keys A and S? ;)

March 28 2006 at 4:28 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Benjamin Hubbard

Takumi,

I take it you dont' have kids? I know that is why my wifes PB has a } where the Y should be and a ? where the V should be...

March 28 2006 at 4:14 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Takumi Murayama

Random Question: why is the A on the post image gone and the S half gone? Do you type A a lot more or something? AAAAAAAAAAA!

March 28 2006 at 1:33 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Macsupport

There is also startup key commands for Intel based Macs.

http://macsupport.ca/2006/01/18/startup-key-combinations-for-intel-based-macs/

March 27 2006 at 9:16 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

armchairgeek

I guess the only 'safeguard' against that is to use file vault.

Or put gum in all your firewire ports.

March 27 2006 at 5:36 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Sean

Mark-

Holding down "T" will boot your computer as a firewire target disk... so that you can, say, use your iBook as an external drive on your G5, or you can use your iMac as an external drive on your PowerBook... The funny thing about booting your computer in this manner, is that all of your file permissions are ignored and anyone can access any file anywhere on your hard drive from the host computer (what security?).

If anyone knows how to safeguard against this, I'd love to know...

March 27 2006 at 2:00 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

MIchael S.

"Option-Command-Shift-Delete - Bypass primary startup volume and seek a different startup volume (such as a CD or external disk)"

Just option works too though, right? (At least, option brings up a menu letting you choose what device you want to boot from.)

March 27 2006 at 1:17 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Mitchell

Nice to see.

March 27 2006 at 12:33 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply