Adding a Win7 HD to the Chameleon boot menu

[pixelanstalt]

Hi everyone...

 

Short question: I got my MacPro1,1 running OS X Mavericks using Chameleon Bootloader. But I also have a (Boot Camp) HD that runs Win7 64Bit which also needed some time to make it work because Apple doesn't want a MacPro1,1 running Win7 64Bit. Any idea how I can simply add this HD to the Bootloader's menu? Or do I have to completely build this HD from scratch?

 

Thanks in advance for some good ideas or hints.

 

Cheers

Ralf

[3.14r2]

Hi and welcome!

 

Chameleon should "see" any disk/partition attached to a computer, there is no need to add anything to boot menu. It is possible that Chameleon is configured (via org.chameleon.Boot.plist) to boot straight to a particular disk/partition without prompting you to chose the boot drive.

 

Or it maybe just a question of how your Windows is installed. Is it a separate HDD or a partition? Is it an UEFI/EFI type installation or the legacy one?

[styrian]

Back up your files or better clone your partions and try with a Win7 installer, if it recognizes your existing Win7 partition and is able to rebuild the bootblock. If this works, it is perhaps neccessary to rebuild chameleon (multibooting guides). But I am in doubt, that Win7 is on the first primary partiton.

 

There is in any way the danger following this method, to get a complete messup of your internal hd installs.

 

The best bet in your case should be, before you try the method before mentioned, to clone your OSX partition and your Win7 partition to an external hd, (don´t forget to install chameleon in standard mode on the OSX clone) and try, if you can boot from it.

If this works, reformat your internal hd (I think mbr is neccessary for this), by making at least two primary partitions, by formatting the first primary partition fat 32 and the second one hfs journaled. Clone your OSX install back to the second primary partition and the windows one to the first primary. Install chameleon in standard mode to your internal OSX reclone and have then a look in the log file, if the mbr bootblock has been written on your internal hd. If it has not been done, you have to do it intall the neccessary boot files manually.

 

Try, if you can boot on your internal hd with Chameleon to OSX. If not, get it working, following the multiboot guides to get it working.

 

After successful Chameleon boot, try to boot from a windows installer, to make the win7 boot from the reclone working. But I am not sure, if this will work on a cloned Boot Camp partition.

 

If the bootblock restoring of win7 has worked, win7 should now show up in chameleon bootloader or boot automatically without showing up chameleon. If chameleon does not load, you have to set the OSX partition to active (multiboot guides)

 

Some years ago, I had problems to get WinXP installed on a 3Ware SE 9650 raid. At that time, as far as I can remember, I have used SuperDuper for Mac (google for it) to clone my WinXP ntfs partition (after installing the raid drivers) to the raid. Cloning worked very well.

 

Have fun and success with your intended tasks.

[pixelanstalt]

Thanks 3.14r2 for your response. I'll need to check why it's not able to boot. I do see the partition but get some strange error message (I'll see, if I can edit this post later with the message, 'cause I don't have it in mind yet).

 

And yes, Chameleon is set up to boot from a default drive but I also have the chance to manually select another one (i.e. the Mavericks Installer Disk, which works fine).

 

When I was installing Win7 I followed a guide telling me I had to create a special Install-DVD to somehow manage the problem of my Mac booting into 64Bit Win7... So far from now. I'll try to come up with more and detailed infos soon.

 

Cheers

Ralf

[styrian]

Hi and welcome!

 

Chameleon should "see" any disk/partition attached to a computer, there is no need to add anything to boot menu. It is possible that Chameleon is configured (via org.chameleon.Boot.plist) to boot straight to a particular disk/partition without prompting you to chose the boot drive.

 

Or it maybe just a question of how your Windows is installed. Is it a separate HDD or a partition? Is it an UEFI/EFI type installation or the legacy one?

His MacPro1,1 is working as Hackintosh and therefore Boot Camp does not work any more. Or have you got it  to work on a Hack?

 

Have fun.

[pixelanstalt]

Hi styrian,

 

I can not (or better could not) select the Win7 partition as a boot volume. But I installed all Boot Camp drivers and running Win7 I was able to select the OS X partition (10.7.x) as startup disk.

If I'm not able to rebulit the boot partition, I might install Win7 from scratch after Chameleon has come up and tells my Mac it has a 64Bit kernel. Maybe then I'm able to simply install Win7 without the need to prepare a special install DVD. Until now I had just set up the Win7 HD for a later use but wasn't really 'working' on it until now. So there wouldn't be some (working) data loss...

 

But there's one more thing: While preparing my Mac for the Chameleon loader I had to 'bless' the startup disk. Do I have to do this again for the Win7 HD that I'm planning to use? Sorry for asking but Hackintosh stuff is very new for me and there are several things that I sometimes just DO without understanding.

[3.14r2]

His MacPro1,1 is working as Hackintosh and therefore Boot Camp does not work any more.

Oops

 

Or have you got it  to work on a Hack?

Nope.

 

@pixelanstalt

I'll try to provide some information on the subject of Chameleon on Macs and Windows on Macs, this might be helpful to understand the problem you are facing.

 

The key difference between an Intel Mac and a PC is BIOS. Apple use EFI for Intel Macs, while most of older (and some new) computers have BIOS (legacy BIOS as it is called today). Hence OS X is designed to work with EFI firmware Apple provides on their computers. Windows (Vista and up) can work with both (U)EFI and legacy BIOS.

 

Apple has a legacy BIOS emulation build-in in to their EFI firmware. AFAIK it was done in order for the user be able to install other OSs on a Mac (be it Windows or Linux). Boot Camp tool helps you to shrink the existing disk (if there is only one disk in the computer) then creates a FAT partition (using the space gained after shrinking the existing OS X partition) and finally reboots your Mac in to legacy BIOS emulation mode so you could install Windows in non (U)EFI mode.

 

OS X (original not patched version) may only be installed on a GPT disk (Windows can only boot from GPT disk if (U)EFI is used - not the legacy BIOS), Boot Camp creates a hybrid disk (OS X recognise such a disk as a GPT disk, while Windows recognise such a disk as a MBR disk).

 

On a PC Chameleon is used to emulate Apple's EFI firmware (otherwise OS X won't even boot). Since older MacPros have 32-bit firmware while 64-bit is needed for newer OS X versions, Chameleon is used on these Macs to provide the 64-bit emulated firmware. That is the boot process goes like this:

• 32-bit EFI boot (as usual)
• enter legacy BIOS mode in order to be able to install and use Chameleon (Chameleon can only work in legacy BIOS mode not (U)EFI mode)
• boot to OS X (which is tricked (by Chameleon) in to thinking that it is working on 64-bit EFI Mac)

[styrian]

Hi styrian,

 

I can not (or better could not) select the Win7 partition as a boot volume. But I installed all Boot Camp drivers and running Win7 I was able to select the OS X partition (10.7.x) as startup disk.

If I'm not able to rebulit the boot partition, I might install Win7 from scratch after Chameleon has come up and tells my Mac it has a 64Bit kernel. Maybe then I'm able to simply install Win7 without the need to prepare a special install DVD. Until now I had just set up the Win7 HD for a later use but wasn't really 'working' on it until now. So there wouldn't be some (working) data loss...

 

But there's one more thing: While preparing my Mac for the Chameleon loader I had to 'bless' the startup disk. Do I have to do this again for the Win7 HD that I'm planning to use? Sorry for asking but Hackintosh stuff is very new for me and there are several things that I just DO without understanding sometimes.

Assuming, that you  have access to your Win7 partiton from OSX, attach an empty internal hd, make the neccessary primary partitons, clone your Win7 partitions to this HD to have a backup. I think, that you are not able to boot without Chameleon as bootloader a original Win7 installer because of the Mac EFI.

 

Get your original Win7 hd and attach it internal on a pc, even if it is a friends one, and try with a "original" Win7 installer (usb or dvd), not with you espacial dvd, to restore the bootblock of your Mac-Win7 Boot Camp disk. Set the bios of this pc to legacy, it it is an UEFI one, and in any case to ahci.

 

If your Boot Camp Win7 is not recognized, you have to do a new install of Win7. You should use for this task in any case for the inital Win7 install a PC.

 

Perhaps this install is then not working on your MacPro because of EFI. Then you could only try to reclone your clone to this install by hopping that it´s bootblock is not overwritten.

 

An other solution seems to be to try to get access within OSX to Win7 by trying to mount it with Parallels Desktop.

 

Sounds a bit surrealistic a hackintoshed MacPro, but it is reality and a must to get newer OSX versions installed and working on it.

 

Have fun.

[pixelanstalt]

I'll give it a try. Thanks for your feedback...!

 

Cheers

R