Booting Your Apple Mac From CD, DVD, iPod or External Device
Mac Boot Key Combos
Force Reboot:
ctrl +apple + power button
Force Eject CD on Boot:
Hold down the mouse button
Boot from CD:
Hold down C key on startup
Boot from External Drive/iPod:
Hold Option key on startup
Boot into FireWire Disk Mode:
Hold the T key on boot
Boot into Single User Mode:
apple + s
When you encounter troubles and you want to try and fix them, your first port of call is to reboot your mac from a device other than your internal hard drive. This alternative device could be anything from your CD-ROM, DVD-ROM drive to an external hard drive or even your iPod.
In this article we outline the key combinations, needs and requirements for rebooting your Apple Mac from a secondary device and how to go about troubleshooting your problems. So first, let’s get to grips with how to boot the system from a secondary source:
Booting From your CD/DVD Drive or External Hard Drive
Every new mac comes with a Boot CD or Boot DVD for re-installing the operating system (OS) at some time at which the initial install of the OS has reached its sell-by date. This CD is the easiest way to get the machine booted and in a state where you can run some basic tests and fixes using the Apple Disk Utility available as part of the install process.
I am going to make the assumption that you are unable to boot the Mac to a state where you can reach system preferences, so I will disregard the “Startup Disk” selector in a System Preferences as a means by which to select the CD as a boot disk! As an alternative, startup the Mac, as it whirs into action, slot the CD into the drive and then hold down the C key. This will force the Apple Mac to attempt to find a valid system folder on whatever media is contained int he CD/DVD drive and use it to boot the Mac.
Force Ejecting a CD/DVD from the Mac System
If you need to force the Mac to eject the CD/DVD again, then you can always force reboot or hard reset with the key combination COMMAND + CTRL + POWER BUTTON on a Mac laptop or hold down the power key for 10 seconds to power down the system, before waiting another few seconds and restarting the Mac using the power key again as normal. As the Mac starts up, hold down the mouse or trackpad button and this should force eject the CD. On some system there is a force eject button just inside the lip off the slot.
Booting Your Mac System from, or as, an External FireWire Drive
A faster option and one which provides more options is to boot the system off an external hard drive that might have a backupor a pre-installed mac osx system designed for this purpose. In essence, simply plug in the firewire drive into the Mac and power it up. As you power up the Apple Mac, hold down the OPTION key, this will force the Mac to produce a list of available and valid system boot options, whether the valid system be internal, on CD/DVD or on an external device. From this you can select the correct system folder and then proceed by clicking the rightward arrow.
On the flip side of this, with Apple Mac Systems that can be placed into FireWire mode at startup, you can turn the Apple Mac itself into what for all intent and purpose is an external firewire drive itself. To force the system into FireWire Disk mode, hold down the T key at startup. Once in FireWire Disk mode you should see a FireWire Logo screensaver on the screen. At this point you can plug the system into another Mac for testing the hard drive.
Using Your iPod as an External Boot Device
Recently a number of tools have been put on the market, on both a FREE and commercial basis, which make it easier to turn your iPod into an external utility and boot disk. These include, but are not limited to: SubRosaSoft’s DasBoot (free) and MicroMat’s TechTool Protogo (commercial); so booting your mac and getting fixed seems like it has definitely NEVER been easier.
Setting up your iPod as an external boot device is for another article, but once you have it installed, prepped and ready to go, you can use it much as described in the previous sub-chapter of this article whilst talking about booting from FireWire drives.
December 7th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Hi, I have tried this as my Mac suddenly seemed to want to sleep all of the time and it did actually boot up although it still keeps going to sleep. It also sounds like the fan is having to work really hard - could it be something as simple as a fan change or clean that could cause these problems as I have tried resetting the USM (?) but with no results and my friend talked me through trying to reset the Pram also as apparently that would help. No joy.
Any advice as I am just about to check the old fan again and hopefully that will be it……
December 7th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Debbie,
What kind of Mac are we talking about? MacBook, PowerBook, iMac, PowerMac etc? I would assume that the machine is overheating and shutting down, although this shouldn’t necessarily stop you from booting, unless of course the CPU overheats exceedingly quickly.
Best, Vincent =
February 20th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Got a question here… I’m trying to revive an 12″ powerbook and the Optical drive is shot. when i startup the computer now, i get th old flashing question mark and finder logo. I bought an LG external ’slim’ drive, so i can boot and reinstall OSX. BUT, when i hold down opt on startup, the drive isn’t found. i’m not sure if it’s because the USB ports don’t work until after startup? kinda lost. any thoughts?
February 20th, 2009 at 11:09 am
I hate to ask a silly question but has the device been formatted and had OSX installed on it? If not then it wont show up. To install OSX on it you will require another machine, which point you might as well use one machine or the other as a firewire target disk.
Assuming you are ahead fo the game, you need to follow on with these instructions for booting a PPC from a USB 2.0 device:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060301112336384&lsrc=osxh
Bare in mind, that if you are on USB 1.0 it is going to be incredibly slow.
Hope this helps. Best Vincent =
March 2nd, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Hi,
I have an iBook G4 that went dead on me about a month ago. Every time I try to re-start it, the blank silver screen would appear and go no further. I read some websites that said to reboot using the CD while holding down the c key. I tried that but my cpu just spit the CD back out after a couple of seconds. So still, all I get is the dreaded silver screen.
I’m thinking of taking it to a Mac store because I have pretty much no knowledge on how to handle this kind of thing. But I don’t want to spend a hundred dollars or whatever to have it fixed. Maybe they’ll look at for a couple of minutes and figure out the problem though, and not charge me…?
My question is, what is the best alternative?
Thanks,
Steve
April 18th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
hi, yesterday i’ve been successful in my first trial using this procedure with tiger on imac intel - core duo: 1) clone the total tiger-system with carbon copy cloner on an external hdd 2) which is connected by firewire, with 3 partitions, all formated mac-typical.
3) choose external (cloned) startvolume in systemkonfiguration and reboot. that’s all.
curiously in some context-menues the reconmmended applications are shown twice thereafter.
can anybody tell me, how this can be avoided? - thanks beforehand!
April 20th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
I tried to boot from the DVD. on startup Press C and slot dvd into drive. It keeps booting from the hard drive. On my first attempt this worked and when I went to close the session it asked where Iwanted to boot from and I selected the HDD. HOw do I get it to boot from the DVD again?
steve
April 20th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Steve, try holding down the option key as you boot. Make sure the DVD is in. This will then produce a menu after a short period with all the available boot devices on your system. From there, select the DVD. Hope that works, though it sounds like yo might not be holding down the C key for long enough. Also make sure the DVD is actually in when you restart. Vincent =
April 30th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
I need help. I have a 2.5 year old imac with a 1 year old operating system. When I turn the computer on it chimes like normal, then the grey screen comes on, then the whirly comes on, then a few moments later I hear a click and the computer shuts off and the screen goes blank.
I inserted the install disk and held down the c key but the same thing happens. I am able to eject the disk and it sounds like it’s reading it, but still it’s not booting from the CD.
Any ideas, anyone? I live in a remote area and can’t take it into the mac shop.
(Nothing has happened to it, I haven’t even moved it in months.)
Thanks a lot!
Jenna
June 21st, 2009 at 2:34 pm
ok Jenna
sometimes you can zap the PRAM
here is the apple article
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
sometimes you hav to zap the PRAM a few times (2-3 to be safe that it is wiped)
after zapping the PRAM try holding the C key again and see if it boots off the CD
also check out this aricle
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA22017?viewlocale=en_US
it tells you how to boot off the CD another way.
good luck