how do i boot up my intel mac into the bios?

[rayray1017]

well thats pretty much my question. i was just wondering what keys i need to press to load up the bios. on my thinkpad it's f1.

 

[jsw]

The Intel Macs don't use BIOS, and as far as I know there's no way to boot into EFI.

What is it you want to do?

 

[Benjamindaines]

You cant:

1. There is no BIOS on the intel macs

2. There is no way into EFI, the closest thing you can get is verbose mode (I think thats what this called)

 

[rayray1017]

can you elaborate, because i dont know what efi is or what verbose mode is? thanks for the info too guys.

 

[Heb1228]

can you elaborate, because i dont know what efi is or what verbose mode is? thanks for the info too guys.

You probably need to elaborate what you are trying to do if you want us to help you. Wikipedia can probably tell you all you need to know about the specifics of BIOS and EFI: BIOS, EFI articles.

 

[Benjamindaines]

can you elaborate, because i dont know what efi is or what verbose mode is? thanks for the info too guys.

EFI is Apple's boot loader in Intel Macs (was OpenFirmWare on PPC Macs). Verbose mode (also knows as single user mode) is when you start up into a UNIX command prompt. To get into Verbose mode you hold down Command + Shift + S on boot.

 

[rayray1017]

umm, im just a noob and thought that it would be cool to load up a bios type screen and look around. thanks for the links.

 

[maverick808]

It's really easy to get to the EFI screen. Just use rEFit...

http://refit.sourceforge.net/

 

[Heb1228]

umm, im just a noob and thought that it would be cool to load up a bios type screen and look around. thanks for the links.

No problem. Letting us know that in the beginning just helps us know better how to direct the answers of questions in a way that'll be helpful. Really anything like BIOS settings that can be changed are done mostly in System Preferences. You can get some apps to tinker with other things, like there's one I have that either mutes or lowers the volume of your startup sound. You can search http://www.versiontracker.com for stuff like that.

 

[rayray1017]

you guys are awesome. thanks for all the good info.

 

[PatrickF]

Verbose mode (also knows as single user mode) is when you start up into a UNIX command prompt. To get into Verbose mode you hold down Command + Shift + S on boot.

Actually verbose mode and single user are two different things (at least they were on PPC).

Verbose mode will boot OS X normally, however, rather than showing you the shiny Apple logo with the spinning thing you'll get a black screen showing you the boot messages. If I remember correctly you do this by holding down V.

Single user mode boots you into a half loaded state (just gives you a terminal with not a lot loaded). This one would be Option + S.