Mac Startup Shortcut keys not working?

It certainly sounds as if your KB is not being recognized at boot. It's kind of a Catch-22, because you probably need to zap PRAM in order to get it to work.
Have you tried holding down the "C" key before starting the computer, etc.?

I would try a different USB socket and/or a different keyboard. In fact, this might be one of few times a BT keyboard is needed at boot to get things going.
See if you have any POST errors - click the little apple logo, top left, select "about this..." and then click
"More Info" and look at the Diagnostics POST results. Anything other than Passed is a problem.
You can also directly open the System Profiler to get there.

sebf wrote:
I tried another USB port and a PC keyboard and it still didn't work I did try different combo's of the Ctrl, Windows Key and Alt key, with no luck the post test in the system profiler just says Passed. Unfortunately I don't have a BT keyboard so I can't test that. I am all out of ideas?

I just had another though - - there is a way to prevent these keys from working, as a security thing.
If you activated the boot password at the EFI level, whether on purpose or accidentally, this is exactly what happens. I suspect this might be the problem or at least a possibility.
Check out this document:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106482

Message was edited by: nerowolfe

sebf wrote:
I did change the firmware password using the Mac OS 10.5 Install disc, but I have since disabled it. I have tried the startup key combo's with the firmware password on and off, but its still not responding to the startup keys. I know about 4 months it was working.

Somehow, I believe that the firmware password setup is messed up. It may be from one of the recent updates that modified the OS kernel. I suspect that part of the firmware password (the blocking of the KB on boot) got turned back on. Just a guess, but I think it's the reason, if only because what you describe is exactly what the firmware password does to the KB on boot.

You might repost this in the Unix forum to see if anyone knows how to undo it directly in a terminal.
I am very sure that this is the problem, but it remains to solve it. You need to re-enable the KB on boot. I am sure it's simple, but I do not know how or where to find it.
Here's a link to the Unix forum:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=735
One last thought
In a terminal, run the command
dmesg
which will show you the boot process. Maybe somewhere in there you will see a reference to turning on the KB during the boot, which might help to know where the switch is located.

Here's another link which is a bit scary about the firmware password, but it does give instructions for a complete system firmware reset:
http://www.securemac.com/openfirmwarepasswordprotection.php

Message was edited by: nerowolfe

sebf wrote:
I couldn't see any reference to the keyboard in dmesg, but the first part looks quite suspicious where its not ready for devices and security auditing comes up, then it mounts the drive and boots up:

aders
devfs makenode: not ready for devices!
IOAPIC: Version 0x20 Vectors 64:87
ACPI: System State [S0 S3 S4 S5] (S3)
mbinit: done
Security auditing service present
BSM auditing present
rooting via boot-uuid from /chosen:

I don't think I can boot into Open Firmware in the link you sent, as Intel Macs no longer use it. It looks like the only other way to reset the PRAM is to fiddle with the RAM which isn't that easy on a Mac Mini.

Message was edited by: sebf

I have the same not ready message, so that's not it. 🙂
I am still sure that it's in the firmware password area, though.
Are there any batteries you can remove to bring all the firmware back to zero?
Bear in mind that there was a Mac firmware update some time back, at least for my MBPs.
I never used the firmware password protection for exactly these reasons. They are too difficult to undo.