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Mini-tutorial: System will not startup from correct volume or partition: Fix

You may experience a problem where your system does not startup from the desired Mac OS X partition, instead booting into a Boot Camp-enabled Windows or other partition.

CNET staff

You may experience a problem where your system does not startup from the desired Mac OS X partition, instead booting into a Boot Camp-enabled Windows or other partition.

The first procedure you should try in this situation is the use of one or more startup keyboard commands, as follows:

  • Holding the Option key at startup will bring up the startup disk selector, from which you may be able to successfully select the desired Mac OS X partition
  • Holding the X key during startup will attempt to force Mac OS X startup
  • Holding the Command, Option, Shift and Delete keys simultaneously at startup will skip the "primary" startup volume and look for another disk. Your system may mistakenly think that an undesired partition is the primary startup volume.

Failing the above, you may need to startup from your Mac OS X installation disc and re-select the proper startup disk using the following steps:

  1. Startup your Mac from the original Mac OS X installation media (DVD) by inserting it into the optical drive and holding down the "C" key
  2. Select the Startup Disk preferences from the menubar (you must select your language first)
  3. Select the Mac OS X partition
  4. Restart.
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