How do you get the sodding boot menu

Barks · 12 Sep 2009 at 20:35

Honestly I've had an afternoon from hell with this sodding Macbook Pro. Everyone has gone wrong and I'd appreciate some advice.

I'm trying to reformat the internal drive and restore a backup from Time Machine.

How do I do it because the Disk Utility will not let me do it until it's unmounted.

I've used Google and everyone says to access the boot menu you hold down the ALT key with the funny symbol during boot. Absolute rubbish, doesn't work at all :mad:

Please can someone help me this ultra user-friendly, non-geek piece of machinery is going to get smashed in a minute

Jokes aside, would really appreciate help!!!

MikeHunt79 · 12 Sep 2009 at 20:39

I think it's command for the sodding boot menu, and option for the normal boot menu.

Barks · 12 Sep 2009 at 20:43

Don't try and make me laugh lol i am actually seriously going to go mental

So what do I do. Shut it off and boot it holding down that button between the ctrl and cmd keys?

PardonTheWait · 12 Sep 2009 at 20:52

It's ALT.

switch it off, hold ALT, boot. Keep holding it and keep on and keep on and it'll come up eventually. Don't let go of it til you get the boot menu.

MikeHunt79 · 12 Sep 2009 at 20:57

If you to go mental, I'd like you get a video. If the macbook ends up getting thrown thru a window, you have to upload the video to youtube with the title "Windows, 7"

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1343

I normally turn the machine on first, then just after that bong noise I hold option, which is the same key as alt. I find you need to have a bootable DVD in the drive for the menu to show...

Barks · 12 Sep 2009 at 20:58

Thanks for the help. Before I try again, what is the easiest way to wipe the whole system clean and reboot from the Time Machine backup?

Cheers

PardonTheWait · 12 Sep 2009 at 20:59

boot from the leopard disc

Barks · 12 Sep 2009 at 21:42

Thanks mate.

One last question whilst you're all here

My HD is 320GB my Backup disc for use with Time Machine is 500GB. For some reason it won't backup now as it needs an extra 110GB of space (think this is to do with iTunes moving all my music about) is there no way for it to delete old backup files to make the space?

If I do a full Time Machine backup can I definitely restore from it after formating the HD?

iraiguana · 13 Sep 2009 at 20:43

You should be able to restore from it as the time machine copy will not be affect by your system being wiped. You can delete old copies held by timemachine you simply go into the time machine in finder and cmd+delete the backup you want to remove.

Logsi · 13 Sep 2009 at 21:17

Put the Snow Leopard disc in it. Shut down, start up and hold C when you hear the apple tone. It'll boot SL off the disc like Ubuntu. Now once in OS X go to utilities and disk utility.

Then go to erase HDD and make sure to go on the security options and do a 1x zero out at least.