Accessing the boot menu in OS X is a simple key press, though in some cases it requires specific timing in order to work. Topher, an avid Mac user for the past 15 years, has been a contributing author ...

If your Mac has multiple bootable disks—via either a partitioned internal disk or external FireWire drives—you’re probably very familiar with the Startup Disk System Preferences panel. As you’d guess ...

The keyboard on your Intel based Mac is a powerful tool even before Mac OS X Lion launches. You can use it to do a variety of things like selecting the media or startup drive to boot your Mac with, ...

When the proverbial manure hits the fan and prevents your Mac from booting as you want, knowing the right startup key combination can save the day, whether you boot into Safe Mode, Recovery, Apple ...

If you (a) own an Intel-based Mac, and (b) have installed Windows on it via Apple’s Boot Camp, then you’re familiar with how you tell your Mac whether to boot into OS X or Windows: just hold down the ...

Apple Silicon Macs are changing some long-time user interface methods, and startup key combinations for restore or Target Disk Mode have been significantly changed. The existing methods for booting a ...

It seems that the SD card slot in the new MacBook Pros does count as a bootable device; all you have to do is install OS X onto a card, set it as the default boot device, and you’re good to go. Why ...