06-06-2009, 04:35 AM

iMac, Bootcamp installed.
Need to press Option to get the choice to boot in either Mac or in XP Professional.

A stupid choice I made (in hindsight), was to set it to boot automatically in XP - and if I need the Mac, press the Option key to select it. Who would have imagined the problem below ...

You may have guessed the problem: even though I still press the Option key as I have done countless times in the past, the computer now ALWAYS boots in XP. Not sure what happened, but there is no place where I can select to see the Mac. So all I now have is a standalone PC

The Option key itself seems to be functioning: I tried Ctrl-Option-Delete and it does bring up the Windows Task Manager.

Any ideas - thanks a lot!
Adrian

06-06-2009, 12:49 PM

Hi there!

Boot up into Mac OS X, however possible, then log in. Open up System Preferences, and click on "Startup Disk." Click the little unlock icon in the bottom left hand corner (if there is one) and then select the Mac Hard Drive Icon. Close System Pref. It should be OK now. Restart and try again.

Regards.

06-06-2009, 01:04 PM

You may have guessed the problem: even though I still press the Option key as I have done countless times in the past, the computer now ALWAYS boots in XP. Not sure what happened, but there is no place where I can select to see the Mac. So all I now have is a standalone PC

The Option key itself seems to be functioning: I tried Ctrl-Option-Delete and it does bring up the Windows Task Manager.

When in XP, open Control Panel, Boot Camp. From there you can select to startup in OS X rather than XP. If your machine refuses to start in OS X even after that, it might indicate a problem on the OS X side. Post back if that's the case and we can go from there.

Regards.