How to reinstall osx with a windows keyboard

Question

I read that the hotkey to use for reinstalling osx is cmd + r but I have a windows keyboard plugged in and I am wondering what I can do to reinstall osx with this keyboard?

Solution 1

Hold windows key + ALT + R Together

Solution 2

The Command key maps to the ALT key on a standard US English keyboard

Try holding down ALT + R and see if that works.

Alternitavely, holding down ALT during EFI (when the screen is grey directly after power on) will present you with a menu of boot options. This should include the recovery partition on the hard drive, as well as any external media (OS X media for example) the system considers bootable

Solution 3

The Windows key plus the R key (i.e.,Win+R)

Re/boot the computer and do not actually press this combination until the instant you hear the obnoxious “startup chime” (AKA “macOS is broken again everyone far and wide hear it!”), and hold this combination until you see the Apple logo, then feel free to release. That is all. Stupid OS.

Comments

[erikvold]

actually I tried alt, windows key and ctrl all more than twice now, so it takes more than 3 reboots.

[erikvold]

I tried this it doesn't work, also tried with ctrl and the windows key and this all did not work.

[Tetsujin]

which only goes to prove it's not working, not that my answer was wrong.

[Crippledsmurf]

You do need to be holding it down at the right point in the process. Try turning the computer off, and then the second you press the power button hold down ctrl. This has always worked on my Late 09 iMac. If you've got optical media, pressing C should make it boot from that.

[Burgi]

This is the same as the other answer.

[Sijan Shrestha]

This works ! Using windows keyboard wireless 2000

[Reado]

Same here! Wireless Desktop 5000! Thank you so much!

[Alex Benfica]

How long does it take for the Recovery Menu to showup? I can only see a light grey screen and after 1 minute a folder with a question mark starts to blink

[Wossname]

This one booted me into Internet Recovery Mode. Windows-R booted me into normal recovery mode (OSX 10.11 El Capitan)