Boot Camp menu doesn't always work

[Diggs]

When I boot my Mini holding the Option key on my keyboard I have about a 1 in 5 chance of actually getting the Bootcamp menu. I think the problem is that my wireless keyboard doesn't connect until the computer is partially booted. Which is something that I, unfortunately, can't change.

Is there any way to set it so that Bootcamp loads every time I turn on my computer even without the option key held down? That would be ideal.

 

[Theatrics]

Yes, you can go into System Preferences > Startup Disk.

But why would you favor the boot camp partition over OS X

 

[Diggs]

Yes, you can go into System Preferences > Startup Disk.

But why would you favor the boot camp partition over OS X

oh, no. That's not what I meant What I meant was, I want to have the chooser come up every time I boot.

Since I can't get the boot menu to come up by holding the option key, I just want it to come up all the time. In other words, I want it to ask me which system to boot every time it boots instead of automatically booting into one or the other.

As it is currently, if I want to boot to windows and the computer's off I have to boot all the way into OS X and reboot into windows, which is a big pain.

 

[Diggs]

I'll take everyone's silence to mean that this cannot be done? It seems like a no-brainer to me that they would allow you to do this...

 

[Theatrics]

Sorry for the silence but I'm not entirely sure why your keystrokes arn't getting through after the start up sound. Mine do not get through at times either. I'd be happy if Apple fixed that.

 

[SaSaSushi]

I'll take everyone's silence to mean that this cannot be done? It seems like a no-brainer to me that they would allow you to do this...

You can also press and hold the Menu button on your Apple Remote at startup to access the bootloader as an alternative to the Option key. I agree that I see no reason why the Option key wouldn't work for you though and would check into that.

 

[RealaT]

use a program called rEFIt, it will install a nice boot menu onto your hard drive that will appear whenever you boot up your mac allowing you to select which operating system you like, it even detects OS that are on cd or on external HDD that happen to be plugged into the mac when you boot

 

[sjt04]

Another way of doing it!

I have this problem too but I'm pretty sure I know why. Although that program above is a good idea you may not want to use that so here's my tip. When you restart you Mac, I think it doesn't connect with bluetooth because it has probably been made that it thinks there is no point so all I do is push the on button on the wireless keyboard just before the start up sound and then push the alt key and it works. I think it is because the keyboard sends a signal to the mac that something wants to connect so it lets it. I don't have this problem when the mac is being started up from fresh (not restarted), only when I have restarted. If you have it whn you just start up normally just try this process as well.

Hope this helps