okies I f'up my efi and ntfs partitions help!

[terramir]

okies my netbook will boot to sl but gives my a cannot boot on xp and the efi partition is all of a sudden fat32 and 209 mb of 200, I've tried several cd's to try to fix like the gparted live and well also sysrcd (repair cd) test disk as well as other programs don't seem to help.

this is what I see in terminal and BTW the windows partition is supposed to be ntfs grrr help

bash-3.2# diskutil list

/dev/disk0

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: FDisk_partition_scheme *160.0 GB disk0

1: 0xEE 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_HFS Snow Leopard 119.9 GB disk0s2

3: DOS_FAT_32 39.8 GB disk0s3

/dev/disk1

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: CD_partition_scheme *296.4 MB disk1

1: CD_ROM_Mode_1 sysrcd-1.5.3 258.1 MB disk1s0

/dev/disk2

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: *268.4 MB disk2

bash-3.2#

I was trying to mount the efi partition to figure out what my install placed there but it seems like nothing because my hack still boots with this screwed up table. I wanted to figure out if I could start moving the kext and stuff to the efi partition so I could start to upgrade to 10.6.3 from 10.6.1 but guess what I royally f'ed this up, one of the reason's being that most websites don't give really clear cut step by step instruction. Does anybody here know how I can fix the gpt table (which test disk says is invalid, wrong or what ever without wiping this whole thing? cause I need some of the files on this computer ntfs partition but even ghost can't read the wrongly marked ntfs partition completly and well I need help please

terramir

[srs5694]

okies my netbook will boot to sl but gives my a cannot boot on xp and the efi partition is all of a sudden fat32 and 209 mb of 200,

 

If by this you mean you've got an EFI System Partition that had been HFS+ but that's now showing as FAT32, then I'm afraid you may have fallen victim to the blatant disregard of standards by some Hackintosh utilities and common but bad advice in the community. The GPT specification is extremely explicit in stating that the EFI System Partition must be FAT32. It's common practice in the Hackintosh community to ignore this very clear part of the standard, and I've heard of standards-conforming utilities "helpfully" creating a fresh FAT32 filesystem on EFI System Partitions. The result, of course, is a complete loss of whatever you stored on that partition.

 

My advice is to learn and move on. Don't use anything but FAT32 on an EFI System Partition, and don't store OS files on it. (It's intended for use by the EFI, and I suppose you could stretch that to include a Hackintosh boot loader, but I wouldn't recommend going beyond that.) If you want to put Hackintosh-specific drivers and configuration files somewhere other than the main OS X partition, create another partition of an appropriate type for the job.

 

I've tried several cd's to try to fix like the gparted live and well also sysrcd (repair cd) test disk as well as other programs don't seem to help.

this is what I see in terminal and BTW the windows partition is supposed to be ntfs grrr help

bash-3.2# diskutil list
/dev/disk0
  #:					   TYPE NAME					SIZE	   IDENTIFIER
  0:	 FDisk_partition_scheme						*160.0 GB   disk0
  1:					   0xEE						 209.7 MB   disk0s1
  2:				  Apple_HFS Snow Leopard			119.9 GB   disk0s2
  3:				 DOS_FAT_32						 39.8 GB	disk0s3
/dev/disk1
  #:					   TYPE NAME					SIZE	   IDENTIFIER
  0:		CD_partition_scheme						*296.4 MB   disk1
  1:			  CD_ROM_Mode_1 sysrcd-1.5.3			258.1 MB   disk1s0
/dev/disk2
  #:					   TYPE NAME					SIZE	   IDENTIFIER
  0:												   *268.4 MB   disk2

 

This is badly screwed up. /dev/disk0 is identified as having the "FDisk_partition_scheme" (diskutil's way of saying "MBR"), but it's got a type-0xEE partition, which normally flags the disk as being GPT. It's unclear whether this 0xEE partition exists where a 0xEE partition should exist.

 

My recommendation is to download my GPT fdisk program and use it to try to repair the disk. (If nothing boots on the computer at all, GPT fdisk is included in the System Rescue CD and PartedMagic emergency CDs.) I've got a Web page on using GPT fdisk for repairing disks, so you may find that helpful. Proceed with caution, and if you're not sure what to do, read up a bit more and, if necessary, post back for guidance. Do not save anything you do via the 'w' option in gdisk until you're positive that you've fixed the problem! Excessive optimism about repairs can result in making matters worse and much harder to correct. Be sure to fully read and understand my Web page and any others you can find on GPT data recovery. This is not a task you can click through like you'd click through a software installation wizard. (Although you could get lucky and find that GPT fdisk can automatically recover the whole thing.)

 

One more point: You may want or need to create a fresh hybrid MBR (using the 'h' option on the recovery & transformation menu of gdisk). Your current protective/hybrid MBR is clearly badly messed up, and I don't know if gdisk will attempt to use what's there or build a fresh protective MBR -- it could do either depending on certain details I can't determine from what you've posted.

 

Good luck!

[terramir]

Okies,

I got the system booting again, matter of fact I am currently using snow, I lost my xp install but I installed windows 7 32 bit thanks to a hybrid mbr, then I fixed my snow partition and I can use a bootable flashcard to use chameleon to boot into snow.

however now I'm stuck booting from flash card.

here is the diskutil printout:

 

/dev/disk0

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *160.0 GB disk0

1: Apple_HFS EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_HFS Snow Leopard 119.9 GB disk0s2

3: Microsoft Basic Data 39.9 GB disk0s3

bash-3.2#

 

But here is the fdisk printout:

bash-3.2# ./fdisk /dev/rdisk0

Disk: /dev/rdisk0 geometry: 19457/255/63 [312581808 sectors]

Signature: 0xAA55

Starting Ending

#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

*1: 07 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 234583856 - 77992849] NTFS

2: EE 0 0 2 - 1023 254 63 [ 1 - 234583855] GPT

3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

4: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

bash-3.2#

now I made the disk hybrid because it wouldn't install on the GPT disk which is weird I thought 7 supported GPT (GUID)

Anyways I am in serious jeopardy here, because I dunno what I should do in order to make the EFI bootable so I can put the boot-code there.

 

Now what do I need to do so I won't break windows 7 but I will still be able to boot the EFI partition

terramir

[srs5694]

Windows 7 does support GPT, but it only supports booting from GPT on EFI-based computers; on BIOS-based computers, Windows can only boot from MBR.

 

To boot without your USB flash drive, you'll need to install a Hackintosh boot loader (Chameleon, PC-EFI, Boot Think, etc.) on your hard disk. Try tracking these down and installing one of them.

 

I do not recommend doing anything with your EFI System Partition. Some people in the Hackintosh community (and maybe even some Hackintosh utilities) like to format this partition as HFS+ and store Hackintosh files on it; however, this is a Very Bad Idea because it flat-out violates the GPT specification. I've heard of utilities that, when they see such a non-standard EFI System Partition, put a FAT32 filesystem on it so that the partition conforms with the standard. The result is that the system has problems, and perhaps doesn't boot. It's better to just pretend that the EFI System Partition doesn't exist, or at most store boot loader files on it in FAT32 format.

[terramir]

Still booting from flash drive because it seems the hybrid MBR is stuck on stupid, i.e. the bootflag is set to windows 7 the hybrid mbr side orf things and the protective gpt partition (which windows 76 disk utility sees as one and not two partitions (go figure).

 

I don't know how to set the boot flag so it will boot from my snow leo partition and give me my chameleon boot loader back :S

 

anyone know how to fix this?

 

I had an idea to use GPTfdisk to just convert the whole mess to MBR but I dunno how SL will react to that :S

 

any clues here ?

 

terramir