MtnClmbBkr Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 OK, I checked the help topics and found a description for doing this when it boots into OSX but not for my problem... I have been struggling with this for four days now and have no solution although I have learned more about linux than I ever wanted to know. I have been running OSX for a couple months on an eeepc 1000 with ideneb ver 1.3 (10.5.5) For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to update my kernel. I used OSX86 tools which made a backup of my old kernel then rebooted. During shutdown I had a kernel panic. Now, I cannot boot up. I get stuck at the boot prompt. I do not know enough about the cammands needed to boot from the backed up kernel. I also have linux installed on the other drive and can boot to that-however I am unable to mount the hfsplus drive on it. I am travelling at the moment (currently in Istanbul) and do not have an external CD-rom with me, however, I do have the ideneb install dvd with me. I can only think of three solutions at the moment all of which I have tried and been unsuccessful. Here is what I think could work: 1. Perhaps there is a boot prompt command for pointing to the old kernel-however, I do not know thenname or location of the old kernel. Maybe there is a standard name and location to which the OSX86 tools saves the backup. I previously had 9.2.2 (vanilla?) kernel. 2. Maybe I can enable my linux partition to read the HFS+ not journaled drive and thereby find and or change the kernel. (this would be nice to have even if I fix it another way) I have been unable to find a package which would allow this. And I am having difficulty getting packages and installing them. Linux version: Debian GNU Linux 4.o \n \l "etch", kernel 2.6.21.4-eeepc 3. Make a bootable mac drive with my SD card-boot into mac from the card-which would then allow me to read and make changes on the HFS+ drive. ( I tried this on a windows computer in my hostel but was unable to boot the dvd and install to the card-maybe they have security restrictions set on the public computer.) Lastly (and I don't want to count it as an option) I could find an external dvd reader and reinstall the OS-I really don't want to lose all my data though... Even if I am able to read the HFS drive I am a little shady on what I would need to do to point to the old kernel. Perhaps there are more options out there but this is all I can come up with. Any other ideas? I am quite new to bash commands and would need to be hand walked through them(although I am learning a lot). My head feels like it is going to explode... Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marclh Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 Get a 8-12gb flash memory drive and install OS X on it. There should be a backup of the old kernel in the root of the drive, delete the one you have now (Mach_kernel) and rename the old one to Mach_kernel. Then go into Library, Preferences, System Configuration, and open com.apple.Boot.plist and one of the entries should be this <key>Kernel</key> <string>mach_kernel</string> if it is, don't bother about changing it, it will work fine. I hope this helps a bit. If you need any other help just reply to this post. Or you can go into your iDeneb DVD enter these commands into a terminal: defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE killall Finder Then search though the DVD until you find the folder where the different kernels are and reinstall the old one you had. (make sure that you are installing it to the right drive) When you're done reinstalling the kernel to rehide files / folders you don't want to see use the same command but instead of TRUE, write FALSE instead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanceomni Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 Do you remember what you named it? You should be able to use the boot-flags -v mach_kernel.backup if say it were named mach_kernel.backup. Did you set proper permissions for your kernel? Installing it manually is pretty easy and you know you have done what needs to be done. Say you download a kernel. Place it on your desktop. Say its called mach_kernel.new Run the following commands in Terminal to install: 1. Give yourself root privileges sudo -s 2. Make a backup copy of your current kernel cp -r /mach_kernel /mach_kernel.backup 3. Copy your new kernel to your root directory and name it mach_kernel cp -r ~/Desktop/mach_kernel.new /mach_kernel 4. You don't have to do it but I find it convenient to keep a backup copy of the new kernel so that if updates overwrite it you can boot it back up. You can do this after you test it out if you like. Just remember to finish the remaining commands) cp -r /mach_kernel /mach_kernel.new 5. Set correct ownership chown root:wheel /mach_kernel* 6. Set correct permissions chmod 644 /mach_kernel* 7. If the kernel you are installing has a different version number than your previous, you are going to want to install a new system.kext to match. For example your new system.kext is on the desktop. cp -r ~/Desktop/system.kext /System/Library/Extensions/system.kext 8. Set proper permissions for your extensions folder chmod -R 755 Extensions/ 9. Set proper ownership for your extensions folder chown -R root:wheel Extensions/ 10. Touch extensions folder touch Extensions/ 11. Remove the extensions cache and force OSX to rebuild it with the new one. rm -rf Extensions.mkext 12. Repair Disk Permissions. diskutil repairpermissions / Reboot using -v -f Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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