Apple - Are there any other way to restart to recovery HD
Try this alternative way (explained at macworld.com):
Start you Mac while pressing the Option key (in your Windows keyboard press the Alt key) until the Startup Manager appears:
One of the volumes will be called Recovery HD.
Select Recovery HD and then click the upward-pointing arrow below it to boot from Recovery HD.
After a brief delay, you’ll see the Mac OS X Utilities screen. Select Disk Utility to repair your disk:
Note for other who come across this thread. To get into Internet Recovery Mode I used WINDOWS + ALT + R on my 2011 Mac Mini while powering back on. CONTROL + ALT + R did not work for me with a Windows Keyboard (USB).
I tried this with a bluetooth windows keyboard and the ALT key on the left side of the space bar worked for me. I did not press any other key.
One more thing: it did not work when I did a soft restart; I had to power down, hold the ALT key, then power up the mini.