Fixing "Select CD-ROM Boot Type" When Booting Windows or Linux on a Mac

If you're reading this post, I hope you found it before wanting to throw your Mac across the room for not previously working. Further, I hope your results with this "trick" are as good as mine!

If you've been trying to put Linux or Windows on Mac hardware but receiving, "Select CD-ROM Boot Type," and then subsequently your keyboard becomes unresponsive to actually input any value, try this:

After you select to boot your CD/DVD, begin to hold down the 1 key. The screen will eventually turn black once; press enter. The screen likely then changes to a subtly different black screen. press enter. Be sure to hold down the 1 key the entire time until your OS boots.

In my testing, I had 100% success following this trick.

Note, you may need to unplug and replug your USB keyboard after your OS bootloader starts due to the computer thinking you have a stuck key and deactivating the hardware.

My testing was done with Kali Linux and worked for both 32-bit and 64-bit DVDs that I had burned. I suspect this will likely work for any other OS you are trying to boot off a CD/DVD for.

Good luck!