Always prompt for Boot Device on Startup?

Question

I have a MacBook where I have to dual boot Windows and OS X. When I hold the Option Key on startup, I get the nice "Select Boot Device" screen.

Is there a way to permanently enable this, so that I don't have to remember to hold option every time I restart?

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 20 '11 at 07:42

5

One way to do this is to install a boot loader such as rEFIt.

This will present you with a menu similar to the following when you start up your computer:

enter image description here

answered Feb 20 '11 at 07:42

Senseful

3

That seemed like a mighty large stone to kill a very small bird, but it works fine :) – Michael Stum Feb 21 '11 at 16:04
1

Since rEFIt is no longer under active development, consider using rEFInd (http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/) - it is a fork of rEFIt. – Hanzaplastique Jul 20 '18 at 15:52

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 06 '21 at 04:07

2

On Intel-based Macs, this supposedly works (unverified):

sudo nvram manufacturing-enter-picker=true

Note that this reportedly is not supported on ARM-based Macs.

answered Nov 06 '21 at 04:07

dgatwood

Good find! There are some other nvram options for booting to recovery etc documented here : https://mrmacintosh.com/boot-to-internet-recovery-recovery-partition-or-diagnostics-from-macos/ – lx07 Nov 06 '21 at 17:40

2 Answers2