Cannot Startup in Boot Camp using Option Key Anymore

[bijoudesign]

My husband unplugged and immediately replugged my keyboard today and now I can't get my computer to recognize that I am holding down the option key when I restart. It doesn't give me the option to choose which partition I want to go to, but instead just restarts onto the OS side each time.

I am on an early 2009 Mac Pro running Mavericks & Windows 8. They keyboard is a 4 month old WIRED Apple keyboard.

I have tried plugging it into a different usb. It's always been plugged straight into the computer not into a hub. The keyboard will work on the windows side if I open Windows in Parallels BUT not the command key. I know this because I usually hit Cmd C from the windows desktop to get the sliding right menu to appear. Now it won't work. Haven't tried to use the option/alt in parallels/windows. The keyboard does have an extender on it too. Not sure if that matters.

Any help is appreciated! I find Quickbooks runs much much faster if I don't go through parallels and I have quite a bit of bookkeeping to do coming up.

TIA

 

[SaSaSushi]

In Finder, click on the search bar and with the mouse pointer positioned over it, click the option key. If it is working, the mouse pointer will change to a plus sign. I can't think of any reason why you can't get to your startup selections at boot other than a hardware issue with the keyboard itself. Are you waiting until after you hear the chime and then pressing the option key? Don't press the key before.

In the meantime, to get into BootCamp you can always go to System Preferences > Startup Disk and select BootCamp, then restart. You can then change it back to OS X from the BootCamp settings in Windows.

I prefer the awesome menubar app, BootChamp for quick and easy rebooting into BootCamp from OS X. One click satisfaction and it's free.

 

[satcomer]

My husband unplugged and immediately replugged my keyboard today and now I can't get my computer to recognize that I am holding down the option key when I restart. It doesn't give me the option to choose which partition I want to go to, but instead just restarts onto the OS side each time.

I am on an early 2009 Mac Pro running Mavericks & Windows 8. They keyboard is a 4 month old WIRED Apple keyboard.

I have tried plugging it into a different usb. It's always been plugged straight into the computer not into a hub. The keyboard will work on the windows side if I open Windows in Parallels BUT not the command key. I know this because I usually hit Cmd C from the windows desktop to get the sliding right menu to appear. Now it won't work. Haven't tried to use the option/alt in parallels/windows. The keyboard does have an extender on it too. Not sure if that matters.

Any help is appreciated! I find Quickbooks runs much much faster if I don't go through parallels and I have quite a bit of bookkeeping to do coming up.

TIA

Try to Reset Your NVRAM to see if it helps. Plus instead of the 'option' key use Bootcamp control in System Preferences->Startup Disk and in the Windows partition use the Bootcamp Control Panel to boot back into OS X.

Since you are not gaming look at something like Virtualbox, VMWare Fusion or Parallels virtualization that will let Windows app run in OS X (except hardcore games then you have boot into Bootcamp).

 

[SaSaSushi]

Sometimes I really have to wonder if some people actually read threads before responding to them.

Plus instead of the 'option' key use Bootcamp control in System Preferences->Startup Disk and in the Windows partition use the Bootcamp Control Panel to boot back into OS X.

I'm pretty sure I just said that above.

Since you are not gaming look at something like Virtualbox, VMWare Fusion or Parallels virtualization that will let Windows app run in OS X (except hardcore games then you have boot into Bootcamp).

She already said she's using Parallels and has no problems accessing her BootCamp partition that way.

 

[bijoudesign]

Problem solved

I tried zapping the pram and then restarted and made sure to wait for the chime before holding down the option key and all is working now! Thank you so much!