MacBook Air won't boot into OS X after Windows 7 was installed via Boot Camp

Question

I installed Windows 7 (Boot Camp) on a MacBook Air (July 2011 model, OS X Lion), and now it only boots into Windows. How do I boot it into Mac OS again?

Solution 1

I booted into Mac OS by holding down Alt/option key while the computer was booting up.

I also read that holding down C key works, but it did not work for me.

Here is the info from Apple:

Key or key combination  What it does
Option      Display all bootable volumes (Startup Manager)
Shift       Perform Safe Boot (start up in Safe Mode)
C           Start from a bootable disc (DVD, CD)
T           Start in FireWire target disk mode
N           Start from NetBoot server
X           Force Mac OS X startup (if non-Mac OS X startup volumes are present)
Command-V   Start in Verbose Mode
Command-S   Start in Single User Mode

Solution 2

Hold down the Alt/Option key at startup to select which startup disk you want to use. At times, I've noticed Boot Camp changes the default startup disk in either the Windows or OS X preferences. Check both of those to make sure they're consistently set to whichever OS you want to start up by default.

Comments

[peelman]

'c' boots to the cd-rom on machines equipped with them. the Alt key is the simplest way, but i thought there was a way to make the switch in windows so it would come back to OS X. i havent had to use boot camp in years though...

[user3333603]

In windows you use the boot camp control panel to switch startup disks (OS X or Windows). The same preference can be changed in system preferences.