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Press any key to boot from CD, Disk error, Press any key to reboot - my fix

"Press any key to boot from CD" does not respond to keyboard input
"Press any key to reboot" does not respond to keyboard input

Here was my problem and the ultimate solution to install Windows XP on my iMac.

All was going well, until I failed to select the correct option in the "Formatting the Windows Partition" step of the Boot Camp instructions. Basically I didn't read the instructions first, but I digress.

Anyway, I selected the "Leave the current file system intact" option.

It appeared the install was going normally, the files started coping from the XP install disk, so I left the install unattended. Anyway, next thing I knew my iMac had rebooted and came up with a message:
"Press any key to boot from CD
Disk error
Press any key to reboot"

I thought no problem, I'll just restart. I powered down the iMac (held power button down for several seconds) and powered back on. Same messages came up. There was no response from the keyboard to the "Press any key to boot from CD" message. Nor was there any keyboard response to the "Press any key to reboot" message.

Long story short, I was able to eject the CD/DVD by holding down the mouse (used a Mac mouse) while booting up, but that was the only Mac function that worked.

I could not do any the following:

1. Use Start-up Manager to "Display all bootable volumes" screen by holding down the "Option" key while powering up
2. Boot to the CD/DVD by holding down the "C" key while powering up
3. Start in FireWire target disk mode by holding down the "T" key while powering up
4. Force Mac OS X startup by holding down the "X" key while powering up
5. Reset my Mac's PRAM and NVRAM by holding down the "Command, Option, P, and R" keys while powering up

Basically I could not get any response from the keyboard.

My solution was to plug in a regular Windows USB Keyboard and then I could boot from the Windows Install CD and continue my Windows install.

24" iMac 3.06 GHz, 4GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.5.7), Also 20" iMac 2GHz Intel, 2GB RAM

Posted on May 16, 2009 9:18 PM

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Press any key to boot from CD, Disk error, Press any key to reboot - my fix

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