Cannot Switch Between Atari OS and PC mode

[SoCalAttorney]

My VCS no longer recognizes hitting the escape key if I want to switch between the Atari OS and PC mode. I have Windows 10 Pro running on an internal SSD and have tried both the Logictech MK270 wireless mouse/keyboard combo that I've been using for the last 2 years and a corded keyboard. Any suggestions?

I tried both keyboards on the other VCS I own, so it seems to be a hardware issue with one of the machines.

[Mockduck]

So, I don't have an internal SSD for the second OS and instead use a USB stick, but I thought Escape just worked to toggle between AtariOS and the USB stick (with Windows on it) rather than AtariOS and another internal hard drive. It was working previously with an internal SSD?

[Smell Dawg]

21 hours ago, SoCalAttorney said:

My VCS no longer recognizes hitting the escape key if I want to switch between the Atari OS and PC mode. I have Windows 10 Pro running on an internal SSD and have tried both the Logictech MK270 wireless mouse/keyboard combo that I've been using for the last 2 years and a corded keyboard. Any suggestions?

I tried both keyboards on the other VCS I own, so it seems to be a hardware issue with one of the machines.

Mine was doing this recently.  I unplugged all USB devices except for the keyboard, then escape-key during bootup worked.  Hope that helps!

...and I only had to unplug the USB devices the one time; it's worked since.

[zzip]

One thing that may help you is to put reFind on a USB stick, and boot with it,  this will detect all bootable OSes on your VCS and allow you to select the one to boot from

http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/

 

As to why the escape key stopped working, not sure..    

[zzip]

On 11/23/2023 at 7:52 PM, Mockduck said:

So, I don't have an internal SSD for the second OS and instead use a USB stick, but I thought Escape just worked to toggle between AtariOS and the USB stick (with Windows on it) rather than AtariOS and another internal hard drive. It was working previously with an internal SSD?

If you hit escape, and go to the boot manager, you can choose to boot any detected OS installed on the device no matter which disk it's on.

[SoCalAttorney]

On 11/24/2023 at 8:15 AM, Smell Dawg said:

Mine was doing this recently.  I unplugged all USB devices except for the keyboard, then escape-key during bootup worked.  Hope that helps!

...and I only had to unplug the USB devices the one time; it's worked since.

I honestly have no idea how it resolved, but it did. 🤷‍♂️