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Chapter 1: Getting Your Mac Up and Running
To choose your startup disk, you have several choices:
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Press and hold Option as the Mac’s startup chime begins; a screen appears showing
icons for each disk available to boot from (you can release Option then). Select the
desired disk by using the mouse or touchpad or by pressing ← or → until the desired
disk is highlighted (an ↑ icon button appears below it). Then press Return or click
the ↑ icon button to boot into the selected disk.
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Press and hold the C key as the Mac’s startup chime begins to start up from a CD or
DVD. Note that this method is guaranteed to work with Apple’s SuperDrives, which
come with every Mac but the MacBook Air (and you can buy an external one for that
laptop). If you have another manufacturer’s DVD drive in or attached to your Mac, it
may or may not be bootable.
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Press and hold the D key as the Mac’s startup chime begins to start up from the first
internal disk in a Mac that has multiple internal disks (meaning a Mac Pro).
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Press and hold the N key as the Mac’s startup chime begins to start up from the net-
work. (A network startup disk image must be properly configured and enabled, and
the Mac must be connected to the network server that hosts the disk image.)
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Press and hold the T key as the Mac’s startup chime begins to boot the Mac into
Target Disk mode, which lets another Mac connected to it via a FireWire cable see it
as an external disk.
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Boot your Mac from its default disk, and then choose ➪ System Preferences. Go to
the Startup Disk system preference (by clicking its icon or choosing View ➪ Startup
Disk), choose a startup disk from the list, and click Restart. Note that this startup-
disk choice remains in effect each time you start the Mac until you change the Startup
Disk system preference again. (By contrast, pressing and holding one of the keys dur-
ing startup changes the default startup disk for just that one time.)
Note
A system preference is the method that Mac OS X uses to store user preferences on how Mac OS X operates.
Some third-party services that work across applications also install system preferences. They’re all presented in
the Systems Preferences application, which is available at all times from the Ú menu. Chapter 28 surveys the
system preferences.
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Logging in to Mac OS X
After the Mac has finished its startup process, the login procedure begins. The login proce-
dure essentially identifies you to the computer, as a security measure, to ensure that only
people authorized to use your Mac can access it; it also serves a second purpose of activating
your personal workspace (called a user account, explained in Chapter 27), which contains
your applications, preferences, and documents.
The login process is mandatory when you start (or restart) the Mac, but you may never see it
occur. That’s because by default Mac OS X automatically logs into the primary user account
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