Configuring Startup Disk Preferences

Selecting an alternate startup system for your computer is an easy process. The only real requirement for selecting an alternate system folder is that it is a valid boot system for startup. Depending upon your Mac OS X install strategy and if your system supports Mac OS 9 booting, you may have alternate boot capable Mac OS System Folders on a single partition or on entirely different volumes. You can select any of the eligible System Folders in the Startup Disk preferences pane, or choose the Network Startup option to search for any available NetBoot Volumes to start up from, as shown in Figure 13-52.

Figure 13-52: The Startup Disk preferences pane is used to designate which Mac OS System Folder is used the next time your computer starts up.

After selecting a valid System for startup, you can restart using the newly selected System right away by clicking the Restart button at the bottom of the preference pane. If you don’t want to restart yet, you can close the Startup Disk preferences pane, quit the System Preferences application, or switch to another application. Regardless if you click Restart or not, an alert appears asking you to confirm that you want to change the System Folder for the next startup.