2 GUID and 1 Apple Partition Map HD boot issue

[audio geek]

I have a working Chameleon 2 RC2 of 10.5.8 and 2 other drives I added. One of these drives was apple partition map(that actually shows up as a drive in chameleon's boot screen) and another drive which was NTFS. On the first boot everything was fine. Then I repartitioned the NFTS to GUID. restarted and then the boot was stuck on the VMI............... message.

 

Then I removed SATA cable for the GUID that was NTFS and it booted fine. Then for kicks I disconnected the Apple Partition Map drive and replugged the GUID (that was NTFS). and it Booted....

 

I am zeroing out the new GUID drive to make sure no x86 {censored} is on it.

 

Does anyone know what could cause this strange behavior?

 

 

PS thanks for the awesome site and info!!!

[srs5694]

First, some points of clarification, since you seem to be confused about some things:

 

• The Master Boot Record (MBR), GUID Partition Table (GPT), and Apple Partition Map (APM) are three different partitioning systems. Partitioning systems are data structures that describe how the disk's space is to be carved up -- say, sectors 1024 to 799999 are for Windows, 800000 to 1600000 are for OS X, etc.
  
• The New Technology File System (NTFS) is a filesystem. Filesystems normally reside in partitions described by a partitioning system, such as MBR, GPT, or APM. In other words, your statement that you "repartitioned the NFTS to GUID [Partition Table]" is confusing data structures at two entirely different levels. That said, NTFS on BIOS-based computers is usually held on MBR disks, so presumably you converted MBR to GPT. It's unclear from your message what, if any, specific partitions and filesystems you then created. This detail could be important in diagnosing your problem.
  
• MBR, GPT, and APM partitioning systems are CPU-independent -- they can be used with x86, x86-64, PowerPC, or any other CPU type. At least in theory. In practice, APM is used mainly by 680x0- and PowerPC-based Macs, while MBR is the native system for most x86 and x86-64 systems. GPT isn't yet in very widespread use, although it is used on most Itanium systems, on Intel-based Macs, on some x86- or x86-64-based systems running other OSes, and probably on some other systems. Ultimately, support for each type is an OS feature. Linux and OS X on Intel-based systems support all three types. Windows supports MBR, and recent versions also support GPT. Thus, your statement that you are "zeroing out the new GUID drive to make sure no x86 {censored} is on it" makes little sense, from a technical point of view. I'm guessing you mean "MBR" rather than "x86," but I'm not positive of that. If I'm right, there's little point to your doing this, since GPT includes a "protective MBR," which will overwrite the original MBR data structures. The only issue that might be even remotely likely is with the MBR-based boot loader; if that executes, it could conceivably get confused by GPT data structures and cause the computer to lock up or misbehave. The MBR boot loader code resides in the first 440 bytes of the first sector of the disk, and most disk utilities zero it out when creating a new set of GPT data structures.
  

 

These issues aside, I'm not entirely sure of what's going on. What precisely is this "VMI message" to which you refer? If it's a BIOS screen, it's conceivable that you're running into some BIOS weirdness with your GPT and/or APM partition tables. See my Web page on this issue. If it's a boot loader or kernel message, then I'm afraid I don't have many ideas as to specific causes/bugs, although switching to another boot loader might clear up the problem.

[audio geek]

thanks for the info, I'll need to study it.

 

Sorry my bad, the VMI Message was

 

"Verifying DMI Pool DATA.........................."

 

 

This is where boot hangs even after zeroing the drive #2

 

 

 

The 3 drives

 

 

1. GUID with 2 partitions

- OS 10.5.8 Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

- Mac OS Extended (Journaled) DATA drive

2. GUID with Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

-used to have MBR with NTFS partitions

 

3. Drive with Apple Partition Map - Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

[audio geek]

Got it Back for now. I renamed all drives. Then, made drive #2 MBR and then back to GTP/GUID.

I would like to keep the Apple Partition MAP as is, meaning it's partition structure. Do you think I should convert it for an optimal Hackintosh?

 

Other weirdness is that the Chameleon boot screen shows the partition of the Apple Partition Map drive.

 

 

Thanks sooooooo much for your wisdom in these quirks.

srs5694 Rocks!!!!

[srs5694]

The "Verifying DMI Pool DATA" message is produced by the BIOS, so something about your system was confusing the BIOS, as I speculated originally. If the computer is booting now, I wouldn't mess with it; there is wisdom to the saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." In case problems recur, you might want to keep a link to my Web page on BIOS/GPT issues handy; it's conceivable that I'll learn more about such issues and update the page in the future, or one of the suggestions currently on that page may be useful in working around future problems.

 

If you do want to convert your APM disk, I'm not aware of any utility that will directly convert APM to either MBR or GPT without data loss. (If you know of such a tool, I'd be interested in hearing about it.) Such a conversion is theoretically not difficult, and if you know the exact start and end points of the partition(s) on the disk, you should be able to do the job manually with the help of MBR or GPT tools with sufficient precision, such as Linux's fdisk or my GPT fdisk. (I think OS X's fdisk should work, too, but I'm not positive of that.)

[audio geek]

Thanks. It happened again when I changed the Apple PArtition Map to GTP, and the right cure was changing the HD sequence in the BIOS.