Boot camp option key problem

Boot camp won't pop up when i hold the option key down at start.

Worked no problem before and now doesn't.

Checked other forums and all i find is people saying "are you holding it down long enough" and "it works fine for me" which don't really help my problem


so can anyone give me some help using plain english please?

 

Did nothing no, not as far as i can see.
Have XP and the partition is still there yes
I choose to start windows through the start drive and restart yep.

it just won't start through the regular "option button pressed at start up" method.

I even deleted the partition and and went through the whole boot camp windows install from scratch.


please help its so annoying that one day it's fine the next its not!

Thanks

 

update:

I changed the keyboard and to one of these older mac keyboards http://www.spymac.com/upload/news/2005/09/27/m3261_Apple keyboard.jpg

the option key worked so i thought it was the just a case of the imac keyboard being broken (well just both options keys are broken). but the options keys work fine when i used them to type on "textedit"

then i plugged both keyboards in together i discovered that neither keyboard would work when it came to holding option key down to get into boot camp.


So would this mean there is something wrong in the original imac keyboard when it comes to being used during the start up of my computer?

 

i think it was due to having something plugged into the usb port on the keyboard.