EBios errors after installation

[splonk]

I have an Inspiron 530 with 6GB of DDR667 and a Zotac 8800GT, two hard drives installed otherwise unmodded. My setup is Vista Home Premium on the first HD and Kalyway 10.5.4 (KW 10.5.2 + KW update 10.5.3 + Software Update to 10.5.4) on the first partition of the second hard drive. The second partition (20GB) on the second hard drive has Jas OSX Server 10.5.4, used for testing updates.

 

I have set my bios to boot from the second hard drive first, as I rarely need Windows. The problem is for the last two months or so, I cannot get my Kalyway installation to boot cleanly. Normally, I get the spinning slash character, which stops with a message such as "EBIOS read error 0x01 Sector xxxxxx". I can either Ctrl-Alt-Del to reboot numerous times, after which it gets to the grey Apple screen or I can boot Jas OSX server, which always boots first time, shut it down and then try Kalyway, which then goes straight to the grey Apple screen.

 

I'm guessing something in the EFI relating to the first Apple partition is buggered up and booting OSX server flushes some cache or other. Question is, how do I fix it without reinstalling?

 

I've searched the forum for this and Ebios errors seem to relate to DVD media write errors, where people cannot install from DVD, but nobody seems to have this after installation.

[verdant]

I have an Inspiron 530 with 6GB of DDR667 and a Zotac 8800GT, two hard drives installed otherwise unmodded. My setup is Vista Home Premium on the first HD and Kalyway 10.5.4 (KW 10.5.2 + KW update 10.5.3 + Software Update to 10.5.4) on the first partition of the second hard drive. The second partition (20GB) on the second hard drive has Jas OSX Server 10.5.4, used for testing updates.

 

I have set my bios to boot from the second hard drive first, as I rarely need Windows. The problem is for the last two months or so, I cannot get my Kalyway installation to boot cleanly. Normally, I get the spinning slash character, which stops with a message such as "EBIOS read error 0x01 Sector xxxxxx". I can either Ctrl-Alt-Del to reboot numerous times, after which it gets to the grey Apple screen or I can boot Jas OSX server, which always boots first time, shut it down and then try Kalyway, which then goes straight to the grey Apple screen.

 

I'm guessing something in the EFI relating to the first Apple partition is buggered up and booting OSX server flushes some cache or other. Question is, how do I fix it without reinstalling?

 

I've searched the forum for this and Ebios errors seem to relate to DVD media write errors, where people cannot install from DVD, but nobody seems to have this after installation.

 

I have encountered Ebios errors on the 3rd OS X test volume of an external USB/eSATA RAID-capable 2xHDD enclosure set up in BIG mode, yet the first two OS X volumes (both Kalyway) boot without any problem......so I am thinking it may be bootloader related......you could try reinstalling the Kalyway bootloader using OSx86Tools.......

[splonk]

Thanks for the tip about OSX86Tools. Unfortunately, I should have let well alone. I could not get it to install the Darwin bootloader again "Non-EFI Bootloader can't be installed on this partition type", so plumped for PC_EFIv8. Big mistake.

 

Now I cannot boot at all. I can see my disks if I boot from disk and look in Disk Utility, however I cannot see them in Startup Disk. I can boot my partitions via install DVD by dint of rd=diskXsX, which gives me a crappy resolution of 1024x768, but at least I have access to my disks. I've searched the forums for a way of reinstalling the Darwin bootloader without trashing the installations on disk, but step by step instructions are lacking.

 

Anyone know a safe, foolproof way of doing this? I have tried copying across the boot1h file from standalone and blessing, but I get some error and I still could not see my disks in Startup Disk.