Psiuyo Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 Ok, so I kinda screwed up earlier today. I accidentally blew away my partition table and while I have been successful in restoring the table, booting back into OSX has been trouble. 1 = FAT16 - Dell Utility 2 = NTFS - Windows XP 3 = 0xaf - OSX 10.4.7 4 = Linux - Ubuntu (All 4 primary) I can now boot back into into 1, 2, and 4 fine (had to fixmbr/fixboot on XP) and 3 WAS giving me an HFS+ Partition Error, but now gives the Missing Operating System message when that is the active partition. By using the CD I can boot back into my OSX installation, I just can't do it the normal way any more. Any ideas on what I can do? (Sorry, I'm totally new to OSX and not entirely sure what is needed for booting) Thanks in advance! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
donh Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 Ok, so I kinda screwed up earlier today. I accidentally blew away my partition table and while I have been successful in restoring the table, booting back into OSX has been trouble. 1 = FAT16 - Dell Utility 2 = NTFS - Windows XP 3 = 0xaf - OSX 10.4.7 4 = Linux - Ubuntu (All 4 primary) I can now boot back into into 1, 2, and 4 fine (had to fixmbr/fixboot on XP) and 3 WAS giving me an HFS+ Partition Error, but now gives the Missing Operating System message when that is the active partition. By using the CD I can boot back into my OSX installation, I just can't do it the normal way any more. Any ideas on what I can do? (Sorry, I'm totally new to OSX and not entirely sure what is needed for booting) Thanks in advance! I think you wiped out the boot sector. I haven't figured out how to restore one yet. You may be able to use the chain0 added to the XP boot.ini method to get it to boot. If you are using grub it can't read the hfs partition and that is why it says no os. I have seen it sugested you can also use the boot1h file in place of chain0 if that doesn't work. Have not seen any body confirm that though. If that fails I would reinstall. Don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rammjet Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 Try this: Boot the OSX install DVD, go into the installer and go to Terminal in the Utilities menu. 1) You fixed MBR in Windows, but let's try it again from OSX. Type: fdisk -u /dev/rdisk0 2) Bless the OSX partition to tell OSX it has a bootable System folder. Type: bless --mount "/Volumes/(name-of-OSX-partition)" --setBoot --verbose Use the quote marks if the partition name has spaces in it. Don't use the parentheses. 3) Reboot Note: if you happen to boot into OSX (not the installer) and go to Terminal, then you need to add "sudo" to the commands above: sudo fdisk... and sudo bless... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe75 Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 Try Rammjet suggestion, but when ever I got HFS+ Partition Error, I always had to reinstall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psiuyo Posted October 7, 2006 Author Share Posted October 7, 2006 Thanks for both replies. I had tried the fdisk -u /dev/rdisk0 previously, but I didn't know about bless. Anyway, I booted up with the installer and ran both commands fdisk did what it was supposed to do, but I'm not sure about bless. Here's the output from it: # bless --mount /Volumes/disk0s3 --setBoot --verbose Mount point for /Volumes/disk0s3 is /Volumes/disk0s3 Mount point is '/Volumes/disk0s3' No BootX creation requested Device is NOT whole Apple_HFS partition. No external loader IODeviceTree:/openprom not present in the IORegistry. OpenFirmware not present Partition map is MBR Opening whole device /dev/disk0 MBR changed: NO /dev/disk0s3 set as active boot partition While it doesn't appear to have fixed anything, it has changed it. Now instead of the Missing Operating System message I just get a blinking '_' in the top left corner. I haven't tried chainloading from grub or XP yet, but there must be a way to make this thing boot like normal again though. Currently I have grub installed on the partition rather than on the disk so that is doesn't interfere with trying to boot this normally (This is the same setup I had before too) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rammjet Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 when ever I got HFS+ Partition Error He no longer has an HFS+ Partition error. That error usually can be fixed with one or two things: 1) Repair MBR. In Windows, run FIXMBR. In OSX, run the "fdisk -u /dev/rdisk0" command in Terminal. The "rdisk0" is for the 1st hard drive. "rdisk1" would be for the 2nd hard drive, etc. 2) The bootloader can be screwed up. Particularly Acronis. If you delete the link in Acronis and make a new one to the partition, it usually clears up the HFS+ Partition error. Grub can also get messed up. # bless --mount /Volumes/disk0s3 --setBoot --verbose Don't use "disk0s3" in that command, use the NAME you gave to the partition like "MacOSX" or "My Disk" or "Fred" or whatever. If you didn't give a name to it when you erased it in Disk Utility, it assigns the name "untitled". If you go to Terminal and type: diskutil list the NAME of the partition will be in the center of the line printed out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psiuyo Posted October 7, 2006 Author Share Posted October 7, 2006 Oh, but I think that is the name for that partition. #diskutil list /dev/disk0 #: type name size identifier 0: FDisk_partition_scheme *74.5 GB disk0 1: 62.7 MB disk0s1 2: Windows_NTFS Untitled 39.5 GB disk0s2 3: Apple_HFS disk0s3 20.0 GB disk0s3 4: Linux 15.0 GB disk0s4 According to that Untitled is my NTFS XP partition (man, does that ever look ugly in the preview) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rammjet Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 Oh, but I think that is the name for that partition. You are right. I stand corrected. If you can boot the OSX install DVD, hit F8, select the OSX partition and boot into it, there is nothing wrong with the installation. It is still in the partition map or the bootloader. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psiuyo Posted October 7, 2006 Author Share Posted October 7, 2006 Yeah, it boots just fine with F8 from the cd. I'll recheck everything and see if I can't find anything else out of whack. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TopazBar Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 Ok, so I kinda screwed up earlier today. I accidentally blew away my partition table and while I have been successful in restoring the table, booting back into OSX has been trouble. 1 = FAT16 - Dell Utility 2 = NTFS - Windows XP 3 = 0xaf - OSX 10.4.7 4 = Linux - Ubuntu (All 4 primary) I can now boot back into into 1, 2, and 4 fine (had to fixmbr/fixboot on XP) and 3 WAS giving me an HFS+ Partition Error, but now gives the Missing Operating System message when that is the active partition. By using the CD I can boot back into my OSX installation, I just can't do it the normal way any more. Any ideas on what I can do? (Sorry, I'm totally new to OSX and not entirely sure what is needed for booting) Thanks in advance! Believe it or not, I fixed same exact problem. Open up a terminal and do su root # # cat /usr/standalone/i386/boot0 > /dev/rdisk0s3 # On next reboot, voila. While it doesn't appear to have fixed anything, it has changed it. Now instead of the Missing Operating System message I just get a blinking '_' in the top left corner. This is not good. When u see blinking '_', you are now missing more than boot block. Time to re-install from boot DVD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psiuyo Posted October 7, 2006 Author Share Posted October 7, 2006 Believe it or not, I fixed same exact problem.Open up a terminal and do su root # # cat /usr/standalone/i386/boot0 > /dev/rdisk0s3 # On next reboot, voila. This is not good. When u see blinking '_', you are now missing more than boot block. Time to re-install from boot DVD. I tried to do this but I don't have a boot0 file in that location, only a boot.efi, so I used the one off the CD, but unfortunately it's still a no go - still stuck at a blinking _. Oh well, guess I'll have to do a reinstall. At least I'm learning more I haven't really done much to this installation, only a couple modified kexts... reinstalling was the lazy way out, but I think I've exhausted all other possiblities. Thanks for all your guys' help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rammjet Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 As you demonstrated using the install DVD, the OSX installation is there and works fine. It is only the partition map or bootloader that is having trouble finding it. The bootloader on the OSX install DVD found it fine. What about doing something to reinstall your bootloader? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psiuyo Posted October 7, 2006 Author Share Posted October 7, 2006 As you demonstrated using the install DVD, the OSX installation is there and works fine. It is only the partition map or bootloader that is having trouble finding it. The bootloader on the OSX install DVD found it fine. What about doing something to reinstall your bootloader? I'm not using anything external to boot OSX, I just manually set the active partition and let 'er go. I've been avoiding using any sort of MBR boot loader since other's may need to use this laptop and I don't want to confuse them. So it appears I am missing something critical to the OSX partiton bootsector, but I'm at a loss as to what. Neither bless nor writing the boot0 directly to the partition appear to have replaced whatever it is that is missing/corrupt, and those look like what I would use to rewrite the partition boot sector. I might be able to use grub or ntldr to chainload OSX, but I'd like to be able to boot directly without it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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