Filed under: TUAW Tips
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
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