How to Start Up A Mac

Anyone who runs an Apple Computer knows that all you have to do to start up a Mac is to press in the Power Button on your Mac.

But there are instances where doing only that won't do. Maybe your Mac has an automatic log-in and you need to start up as someone else. Or you need to start up from a CD.

Read the following steps to see the many different ways and shortcuts you can use to start up your Mac.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• An Apple Computer
• A need to restart your computer.

1. 
    
   left shift key

   You are at work and share a Mac workstation with two other people. Your Mac is set up to start up with an automatic log-in for your coworker that works first shift, but you work second shift and need to log-in using your own account. There is a way to start up your Mac without changing the automatic log-in. Press the Power Button or Restart your Mac, and once you are restarted and see the colorful spinning wheel, hold in the left Shift key. This will disable the automatic log-in for that restart, and allow you to log in under another user.

2. 
    
   option key

   Your Mac is experiencing some weird things and you are getting some errors. It's time to run Disk Warrior Utility. Disk Warrior needs to be run from a drive that is not the start-up drive. Place the Disk Warrior CD into the CD/DVD drive. Restart your Macintosh, but when you do, hold in the Option key. This will bring up a window that shows every hard drive/cd/dvd disk attached to your system that has a bootable System folder. Select the Disk Warrior CD and click the Arrow button. Your system will start up using the System folder on your Disk Warrior disk. You can also hold in the "C" key to start up from CD/DVD.

3. 
    
   right shift key

   Holding in the Shift key right after you hear the start up tone for the Mac will allow you to start up in Safe Mode. This will let your Mac start up with only the essentials of Mac OS X. Things like third party extensions will not load in Safe Mode. Starting up in this way can show you quickly if you have a conflict with a third party extension. A reboot without the Shift key will start you back up with third party extensions loaded.

Tips & Warnings

• IF you are using a Microsoft Keyboard or a Logictech keyboard with your Macintosh computer, there may be a problem using any of the above tips, because both of those keyboards come with their own extensions that may not load until after the point you are directed above to apply a key hold-in. If you run into issues with the keyboard you are using, and for instance you need to run Disk Warrior, track down an Apple keyboard to use while you are doing your short-cut bidding. It's a little extra work, but when you are in dire straights and DESPERATELY need to run Disk Warrior, it's extra work for a good cause.