Attempted to use gparted to change partition size to dual boot win xp...

[hextile]

after reading the Idiot-proof (apparently not lol) guide to dual booting osx and win xp with leopard already installed...i set forth. (silly me forgot to backup everything)

 

so here's where i am, i got through gparted, changed the MAC osx partition in size, noticed a ~200mb partition called efi, left it alone. formatted the remaining unconfigured space as ntfs. loaded up windows boot cd, it shows a 232g partition available to install on, but i have to delete it. i'm like uh...no..

 

so i attempt to load up osx, and it just hangs (i have it set to boot from cd/dvd, it just hangs there, i attempted to do F8 to have it boot from HD but it still just hung, like i didn't see the bootloader at all.

 

I loaded back up gparted, and marked my osx partition as "boot" and the efi partition was already marked "boot" so i didn't change it. I don't know if this is possible but i think i screwed up darwin or whatnot, because the only time i can see that partition (the one mac osx was installed and working on) is in gparted. When i load up my install disk it just shows the 200MB efi partititon and wants me to format the whole drive.

 

some questions...

 

1. Anyone heard/gone through this?

2. is there anyway to fix darwin if i have 0 access to macosx or xp on this system? (posting this from work)

3. if there isn't a way to fix darwin is there a way to save my installation without losing everything? mind you i had not the foresight to backup so i know it's bad judgement on my part, but if i could save the infos that would be awesome)

 

if you need more information i will try to keep tabs on this post throughout the day. If you would like to PM me i can give phone number if it'll make walking through this easier, because honestly I had a hard time coming up with the language to present this in (I speak american english as my native tongue, but what I was attempting to say at times made no sense)

 

Chris

 

UPDATE: took a look around google and found what i think could be a similar problem.

http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?p=513339

though i'm not entirely sure i will give some of his ideas a chance later on when i get home from work, the thing that worries me is all i get to boot up is an install cd (not the osx itself but if i were to reinstall the system) it's like darwin isn't there anymore

 

UPDATE#2: having my buddy make me a rEFIt boot disk, going to attempt that route as posted in that thread, keeping fingers crossed

 

UPDATE #3: well rEFIt didn't work, neither did the active partition recovery software, however I did notice that at one point i was able to remount the drive, but was unable to do any of the terminal things to get it to boot the os, silly me put the Gparted cd back in and messed with the table again, and broke it right after, so attempting to fix everyting....O M G as i'm typing this i see the apple logo screen!!!!! more shortly

 

UPDATE #4: ok back up and running on original install, however stuck at having to keep the install disk in to boot, not that big of a problem really, kind of annoying but w/e. I've tried every google search idea that i could see but to no avail. currently in IRC seeing if I can use the PC EFI v8 from osx86tools or if it'll require me to reinstall. will keep posted

[hextile]

FINAL UPDATE!!!

 

with the help of our lovely IRC room, we figured out that I just plain needed to install the new chameleon bootloader, and now all is well in my little world

 

awesome community here, and i hope that my ordeal will someday help someone else