F-10 (during Cham startup) what does it do?

[SunLizard]

Lets say you've passed the BIOS checks and are into Chameleon boot up,  I got the impression after reading some of the posts, that F10 might use a 'safe load' or bypass kext loads.  I tried it during the weekend and had mixed results.  I can't say for certain it worked or didn't (since most of my reboots were warm-reboots (ie mem may not have been properly flushed.)

I do know that I did have some success with it ignoring some files (dsdt.aml) at some times but not others.

Can anyone expound/enlighten me?

TIA

S_L

[Distemperus]

i386/boot2/options.c:

Code: [Select]

      case kF10Key:
         gScanSingleDrive = FALSE;
         scanDisks(gBIOSDev, &bvCount);
         gBootVolume = NULL;
         clearBootArgs();
Only the first 2 lines are relevant. It just scans all devices (instead of just the partitions on the boot device), useful when your com.apple.Boot.plist has Quiet Boot=yes; F10 will let you scan all devices, not just the default device that BIOS is set to boot from.

[rocksteady]

Unless you run into a jazzed-up DSDT.aml or other BIOS  snafu, F10 is documented:

Special booter hotkeys:
  F5            Rescans optical drive.
  F10           Scans and displays all BIOS accessible drives. 

[looks like Distemperus replied some nanoseconds before me ]

[SunLizard]

Got it.  Thanks rocksteady and distemperus.

Follow on for clarifications' sake:  Just because its scanning all BIOS visible drives doesn't mean you can place the files (dsdt.aml, com.apple.Boot.plist, smbios.plist and the /Extras/ Dir) in any of them, only the ones that are HFS (HFS+) and FAT readable,  (EG don't expect your files to get read if they are in NTFS, correct?)

Once again, thanks for elevating my understanding....