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barnabas_trumanThis morning I tried using DiskWarrior to rebuild (i.e. defrag) my hard drive. Doing so requires starting up from the DiskWarrior CD rather than from the hard drive, because it can't make such drastic changes to the current startup disk.
Starting up a Macintosh from a CD is quite easy: simply hold down the "c" key while the computer starts up. I did so, and nothing happened--it just started up from the hard drive as normal. After several identically unsuccessful tries, I instead used the system preferences to set the CD as the default startup disk, which worked.
So I was able to rebuild the hard drive using the CD as the startup disk. Problem was, said CD was now set as the default startup disk, and I had no way of accessing the system preferences from it.
I tried restarting while holding down the Option key, which allows changing the startup disk. No effect. In desperation I tried restarting while holding down the mouse button, which ejects any disk present. No effect.
Time to go to an expert. I happened to have an appointment at an Apple store's Genius Bar today already for an unrelated problem that had gone away on its own, which was a fortuitous coincidence. My assigned Genius tried the same startup commands I had plus a few more, all to no avail. If the computer is not recognizing startup commands at all, that's a rather serious problem. His initial suspicion was that the main logic board was gradually failing, a serious problem which would cost a few hundred bucks to replace.
Fortunately this particular Genius was an oldskool sort of Genius, and, on a hunch, went to the back room and returned with an older model keyboard. After plugging it in, suddenly all the startup commands worked perfectly! CD out, startup with hard drive, everything works fine.
So what was the problem? The new keyboard. Apparently the new keyboard BIOS works differently in such a way that it cannot give commands to the computer during startup. Holding down the mouse button presumably didn't work because the mouse was plugged in to the keyboard. I love the new Apple keyboard, and it's increased my typing speed by about 10 wpm, but this is a SERIOUS problem. Without the ability to give startup commands I cannot use DiskWarrior, or a bunch of other stuff either. Good thing I still have my old keyboard on hand in case this happens again.
TL;DR: The new Apple keyboard is mostly great but apparently shipped without the vital ability to issue commands to the computer during startup. WTF, Apple? Are you not testing your new products at all anymore?
(On the plus side I had a nice conversation with the Genius about the joys of being oldskool, and recommended he try out Lost Vikings and Dwarf Fortress.)
Starting up a Macintosh from a CD is quite easy: simply hold down the "c" key while the computer starts up. I did so, and nothing happened--it just started up from the hard drive as normal. After several identically unsuccessful tries, I instead used the system preferences to set the CD as the default startup disk, which worked.
So I was able to rebuild the hard drive using the CD as the startup disk. Problem was, said CD was now set as the default startup disk, and I had no way of accessing the system preferences from it.
I tried restarting while holding down the Option key, which allows changing the startup disk. No effect. In desperation I tried restarting while holding down the mouse button, which ejects any disk present. No effect.
Time to go to an expert. I happened to have an appointment at an Apple store's Genius Bar today already for an unrelated problem that had gone away on its own, which was a fortuitous coincidence. My assigned Genius tried the same startup commands I had plus a few more, all to no avail. If the computer is not recognizing startup commands at all, that's a rather serious problem. His initial suspicion was that the main logic board was gradually failing, a serious problem which would cost a few hundred bucks to replace.
Fortunately this particular Genius was an oldskool sort of Genius, and, on a hunch, went to the back room and returned with an older model keyboard. After plugging it in, suddenly all the startup commands worked perfectly! CD out, startup with hard drive, everything works fine.
So what was the problem? The new keyboard. Apparently the new keyboard BIOS works differently in such a way that it cannot give commands to the computer during startup. Holding down the mouse button presumably didn't work because the mouse was plugged in to the keyboard. I love the new Apple keyboard, and it's increased my typing speed by about 10 wpm, but this is a SERIOUS problem. Without the ability to give startup commands I cannot use DiskWarrior, or a bunch of other stuff either. Good thing I still have my old keyboard on hand in case this happens again.
TL;DR: The new Apple keyboard is mostly great but apparently shipped without the vital ability to issue commands to the computer during startup. WTF, Apple? Are you not testing your new products at all anymore?
(On the plus side I had a nice conversation with the Genius about the joys of being oldskool, and recommended he try out Lost Vikings and Dwarf Fortress.)
