Mac OS X Tip – Boot Up keyboard shortcuts

Have you ever wanted to boot off of an external hard drive, or boot from your Mac OS X Install DVD.  Well, Apple has a few keyboard shortcuts to help you out in this area.  In addition, they also offer a wealth of other keyboard shortcuts that I’ll direct you to with a link to Apple’s support page a little later.  But first, lets look at the Boot Up keyboard shortcuts.

Apple has a list of Boot Up shortcuts.  Below are a list of the shortcuts:

• Option……………Display all bootable volumes (Startup Manager)
• Shift………………Perform Safe Boot (start up in Safe Mode)
• C…………………..Start from a bootable disc
• T…………………..Start in FireWire target disk mode
• N…………………..Start from NetBoot server
• X…………………..Force Mac OS X startup (if non-Mac OS X startup volumes are present)
• Commnad-V…….Start in Verbose Mode
• Command-S……..Start in Single User Mode

Apple also has a list of the modifier keys for the most commonly used shortcuts.  Some of those include the above list.  Here are the modifier keys:

• (Command key) – Sometimes called the “Apple key”; on Apple keyboards this key also has an Apple logo ()
• (Control key)
• (Option key) – “Alt” may also appear on this key
• (Shift key)
• (Caps Lock) – Toggles Caps Lock on or off
• fn (Function key) – Located in the lower left corner of built-in keyboards on portable Macs

Earlier I mentioned that Apple has more keyboard shortcuts, you can click here to check them out.  I hope you find these shortcuts as useful as I do.  If you have more Boot Up shortcuts leave a comment in the comments section below.  Till next week, enjoy your new Mac OS X tip and your Mac.

Photo Credit: The Magic Key

Source: Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts