Mac Boot Shortcut

OS X Safe boot	Hold Shift during startup
Start up in FireWire Target Disk mode	Hold T during startup
Startup from a CD	Hold C during startup
Bypass primary startup volume and seek a different startup volume (CD, etc.)	Hold Cmd-Opt-Shift-Delete during startup
Choose Startup disk before booting	Hold Option during startup
Start up in Verbose mode	Hold Cmd-V during startup
Start up in Single-User mode (command line)	Hold Cmd-S during startup
Force OS X startup	Hold X during startup
Hardware reset	Shift + Alt + Option + Power button

Keystroke	Description
Press C during startup	Start up from a bootable CD or DVD, such as the Mac OS X Install disc that came with the computer.
Press D during startup	Start up in Apple Hardware Test (AHT), if the Install DVD 1 is in the computer.
Press Option-Command-P-R until you hear two beeps.	Reset NVRAM
Press Shift during startup	Start up in Safe Boot mode and temporarily disable login items.
Press Command-V during startup	Start up in Verbose mode.
Press Command-S during startup	Start up in Single-User mode.

Boot key combinations:

Everybody knows about some of these boot key combinations, but some of the more obscure combinations have been long forgotten (like how many of us have a Quadra AV and use a TV as a monitor!) – Check these out, you may need one of them someday!

·         C : Forces most Macs to boot from the CD-Rom drive instead of the internal hard drive. Only works with Apple ROM drives and with bootable CD discs.

·         D : Forces the first internal hard drive to be the startup disk.

·         N : Netboot (New World ROM machines only) – Looks for BOOTP or TFTP Server on the network to boot from.

·         R : Forces PowerBooks to reset their screen to default size (helpful if you’ve been hooked up to an external montior or projector!)

·         T : Target Disk Mode (FireWire) – Puts machines with built-in FireWire into target Disk mode so a system attached with a FireWire cable will have that device show up as a hard drive on their system. Very useful for PowerBooks!

·         Mouse Button Held Down : Ejects any mounted removable media.

·         Shift : Disables all extensions (Mac OS 7-9), or disables Login items when using Mac OS X 10.1.3 or later. Also works when booting Classic mode up just like you were using the OS natively.

·         Option : When using an Open Firmware "New World ROM" capable system, the System Picker will appear and query all mounted devices for bootable systems, returning a list of drives & what OS they have on them. On "Old World" systems the machine will simply boot into it’s default OS without any Finder windows open.

·         Space bar : Brings up Apple’s Extension Manager (or Casady & Greene’s Conflict Catcher, if installed) up at startup to allow you to modify your extension set.

·         Command-V : Boots Mac OS X into "Verbose Mode", reporting every console message generated during startup. Really shows what’s going on behind the scenes with your machine on startup!

·         Command-S : Boots Mac OS X into "Single User Mode" – helpful to fix problems with Mac OS X, if necessary.

·         Command-Option : Rebuilds the Desktop (Mac OS 7-9).

·         Command-Option-P-R : Erases PRAM if held down immediately after startup tone. Your machine will chime when it’s erased the PRAM, most people will hold this combination for a total of 3 chimes to really flush the PRAM out.

·         Command-Option-N-V : Erases NVRAM (Non-Volatile RAM). Used with later Power Macintosh systems mostly.

·         Command-Option-O-F : Boots the machine into Open Firmware (New World ROM systems only).

·         Command-Option-Shift-Delete : Forces your Mac to startup from its internal CD-ROM drive or an external hard drive. Very helpful if you have a 3rd party CD-ROM drive that is not an Apple ROM device.

·         Command-Option-Shift-Delete-#(where #= a SCSI DEVICE ID) : Boot from a specific SCSI device, if you have your 3rd party CD-ROM drive set to SCSI ID 3, you would press "3" as the # in the combination.

And, the obscure ones :>) Older computers only, on some.

·         Command-Option-I : Forces the Mac to read the disc as an ISO-9000 formatted disk

·         Command : Boots with Virtual Memory turned off.

·         Command-Option-T-V : Forces Quadra AV machines to use TV as a monitor.

·         Command-Option-X-O : Forces the Mac Classic to boot from ROM.

·         Command-Option-A-V : Forces an AV monitor to be recognized correctly.