Select Boot Volume Without Keyboard

[cgimusic]

I am in a little bit of a bind here. I want to boot my Mac Mini from a DVD. Problem is that for some reason my USB keyboard wont work until my computer starts up so I can't hold down the option key. To make matters worse, selecting a start up volume in system preferences doesn't even work.

Anyone got any idea how to force the boot volume menu to come up or do I have to buy a new keyboard?

 

[velocityg4]

Are you still able to boot OS X normally? If you just put in the disc, open System Preferences, go to startup disc then select the OS X DVD and reboot. You should now be booted into the DVD.

 

[cgimusic]

Are you still able to boot OS X normally? If you just put in the disc, open System Preferences, go to startup disc then select the OS X DVD and reboot. You should now be booted into the DVD.

Sadly no. This doesn't seem to work. The "Reboot" button on the system preferences pane doesn't do anything and after selecting the DVD and rebooting from the  Apple menu I am just booted in to OS X again.

 

[cgimusic]

Never mind guys. I bought a new keyboard today. Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[BlueRevolution]

If you have the same problem in the future, you can also select boot volumes by holding the Menu key on the Apple Remote during startup.

 

[cgimusic]

If you have the same problem in the future, you can also select boot volumes by holding the Menu key on the Apple Remote during startup.

Cool. Thanks.

 

[pjmacl]

If you have the same problem in the future, you can also select boot volumes by holding the Menu key on the Apple Remote during startup.

[doublepost=1529370969][/doublepost]Thank you from many years after your post! You saved my Mac Mini that I use to run legacy apps that are incompatible the current Mac OS. I had accidentally remotely updated the Mac Mini to a later incompatible version of Mac OS, and it would no longer boot nor recognize the keyboard on start-up. Your tip worked perfectly, and I was able to restore from the System DVDs.