Mac OS X Start Up Keys

November 28, 2007

I often search around trying to find the various ways to boot OSX in a special sort of way. I’ve especially needed these sort of things lately, as I had a brand new hard drive die on me.

You can hold any of the following to access any of these special boot modes:

C - Boot from the internal optical drive (CD or DVD)
D - Boot the diagnostic volume of the install DVD
N - Start from the Network (NetBoot)
R - Force PowerBook screen reset
T - Boot into Firewire target disk mode
X - Reset startup disk selection and boot into Mac OS X Server
Shift - Boot into “Safe Boot” mode, which runs Disk First Aid. A reboot will be required afterward.
Option - Boot into “Startup Manager”
Mouse Button - Eject (internal) removable media
Command-S - Boot into Single User Mode (command line)
Command-V - Boot using “Verbose” mode (shows all kernel and startup console messages)
Command-Option-Shift-Delete - Bypass internal hard drive on boot and seek a different startup volume (such as a CD or external disk)
Command-Option-P-R - Reset Parameter RAM (PRAM) and non-volatile RAM (NVRAM)
Command-Option-O-F - Boot into “Open Firmware”

Rumor has it, firmware password protection can be removed by intalling or removing a stick of RAM, then zapping the PRAM three times in a row.

These bootup options were compiled from Apple and this blog.

apple, boot, boot cd, bootup, command, diagnostic, firmware, mac, macos, net boot, open firmware, option, os x, osx, parameter ram, pram, ram, single user, startup, target disk, verbose

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Comments

97 Responses to “Mac OS X Start Up Keys”

  1. Dave Carlton on November 29th, 2007 7:19 am

    Yes, indeed you can remove OF password by changing the RAM configuration and resetting NVRAM (once is enough :). PRAM disappeared years ago when Apple switched to a NVRAM boot ROM.

    I think there are a couple more, will check out my docs and let you know. (I started the OF team back in 1995 and managed the group)

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