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Boot 2 installs of OS X

Guest bikedude880

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in OSx86 10.4 (Tiger)

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Guest bikedude880
Guest bikedude880
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Ok, so heres what's up: I've got 2 installs of OS X 10.4.7 on 2 seperate hard drives in the same computer. As of now, I can only boot into one of them as the other one gives me a flashing cursor in the upper left corner of the screen (a sign of the partition not being active.) I would like to be able to access the second install for development purposes. And ideas on how this might be accomplished?

 

As a side note, please don't tell me to set both partitions as active, I have already dealt with that problem before.

 

EDIT: I know it's possible... I've done it before...

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GBK.Xscape
GBK.Xscape
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i have a problem and since you are talking about active partitions, does osx have to be active to work right. becuase i am using acronis os selector and it detects osx and when i boot it up it just HFS+ partition error. the windows partition is active.

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GBK.Xscape
GBK.Xscape
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i forgot to say but i already tried fixing the Master boot record through terminal with the -u /dev/rdisk0, it said i wrote and eveything but i guess it didnt help. the wierd thing was that when it restarted after the installation it worked and i rebooted again and i took out the install dvd and it didnt work. i tried it again with the isntall dvd and it didnt work either so i am not sure what to do.

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Guest bikedude880
Guest bikedude880
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I've done some searching and have not figured it out yet... I wonder if I can install ACronis to a USB drive and boot off of that...

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cbmkgd
cbmkgd
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So, this is the second sata drive that I see in your sig?

 

The installation went well? Even on reboot, or couldn't finish the installation?

Can it boot with the help of the dvd?

 

I know you're no newb, but gotta ask to eliminate possibilities: primary partition, and before any extended partition?

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Guest bikedude880
Guest bikedude880
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The installation went smooth as butter, restart was clean, go to boot into the fresh install... flashing cursor.

 

No extended partitions at all... Currently partitioned as follows:

 

/dev/disk0
  #:				   type name			   size	  identifier
  0: FDisk_partition_scheme					*189.9 GB disk0
  1:			  Apple_HFS iHack			  189.9 GB  disk0s1
/dev/disk1
  #:				   type name			   size	  identifier
  0: FDisk_partition_scheme					*189.9 GB disk1
  1:			  Apple_HFS Test			   20.0GB   disk1s1
  2:			  Apple_HFS Data			   169.9 GB  disk1s2

 

So far as I can tell, it should work (minus the partition being active...)

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cbmkgd
cbmkgd
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So far as I can tell, it should work (minus the partition being active...)
eh, sorry, don't know what you mean (bold portion). I assumed it was active from your initial post. Is it?

 

As for acronis os selector being on a usb, i've never tried. But grub on usb would be more versatile.

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Guest bikedude880
Guest bikedude880
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The bold portion that you point out... It is not possible (so I've found) to have 2 partitions labeled as active... the computer hates it. It won't boot either when it's like that.

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cbmkgd
cbmkgd
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Well, what i'm used to is: no more than one active partition per disk.

But if your pc doesn't like two actives on two different drives, i'll give you benefit of the doubt. I'll look into that further out of curiosity.

 

The advantage of something like grub or acronis os selector is that you can not only change the drive order (eg making second drive the primary) but also modify active flag.

 

Personally I install acronis os selector and/or grub on small logical partition.

 

/edit: googling a bit here and there, get the usual "one active partition per disk". Will try to find reports of one active partition period for some users. If you have some reports similar to yours, i'd like to read them.

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Guest bikedude880
Guest bikedude880
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if you add both drives to the darwin bootloader it should set whichever one you choose to boot active.

 

How would I go about doing this?

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donh
donh
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Well, what i'm used to is: no more than one active partition per disk.

But if your pc doesn't like two actives on two different drives, i'll give you benefit of the doubt. I'll look into that further out of curiosity.

 

The advantage of something like grub or acronis os selector is that you can not only change the drive order (eg making second drive the primary) but also modify active flag.

 

Personally I install acronis os selector and/or grub on small logical partition.

 

/edit: googling a bit here and there, get the usual "one active partition per disk". Will try to find reports of one active partition period for some users. If you have some reports similar to yours, i'd like to read them.

 

 

I have 3 active partitions on 3 drives. One on each drive. I can boot all 3 with grub.

 

I think your SATA boot sector was not set up by the install disk. That is what happened to me. Can you boot to this partition if it is the first disk and have the DVD in the drive? If yes take the DVD out and try again. You can propably move the drives around in the bios. May have to remove other drives.

 

Is your SATA supported? Can you read it from the partition that does boot?

 

Don

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Guest bikedude880
Guest bikedude880
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I think your SATA boot sector was not set up by the install disk. That is what happened to me. Can you boot to this partition if it is the first disk and have the DVD in the drive? If yes take the DVD out and try again. You can propably move the drives around in the bios. May have to remove other drives.

I have not yet tried to boot the partition from the install DVD. Removing drives is not an option.

 

Is your SATA supported? Can you read it from the partition that does boot?

Yes, my SATA is fully supported as is shown in my signature. I am using the second partition on the drive I am trying to boot also as data storage for the first install.

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donh
donh
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I have not yet tried to boot the partition from the install DVD. Removing drives is not an option.

Yes, my SATA is fully supported as is shown in my signature. I am using the second partition on the drive I am trying to boot also as data storage for the first install.

 

 

Can you change the order in the bios?

 

Don

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Guest bikedude880
Guest bikedude880
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Does that mean you have tried to boot from DVD with that drive as first drive?

 

Yeah. I'm looking at using the GRUB boot loader, as Acronis was slow...

 

And saying the word Acronis just brought up exactly how I did it last time. Now if I could get some help with the Darwin boot loader (editing it to see the second partition on the other drive) I would be very grateful. I have not yet seen anything on the forums, in the wiki, or on google for editing the boot.plist file to allow this.

 

EDIT: Found an article on the forums concerning booting to another partition.

EDIT: Apparently it didn't work. (http://forum.insanelymac.com/lofiversion/index.php/t16734.html)

EDIT: Found another article that describes the rd= command (http://darwinsource.opendarwin.org/10.4.2/boot-122/i386/strings/BootHelp.txt)

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donh
donh
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Yeah. I'm looking at using the GRUB boot loader, as Acronis was slow...

 

And saying the word Acronis just brought up exactly how I did it last time. Now if I could get some help with the Darwin boot loader (editing it to see the second partition on the other drive) I would be very grateful. I have not yet seen anything on the forums, in the wiki, or on google for editing the boot.plist file to allow this.

 

Darwin should show partitions to select for booting. Mine boots from the second partition fine. It needs to be setup correctly. I think the install blew the setup. It did on mine.

 

Here is some good info. Some may not apply to you but it will help understand things.

 

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...mp;&do=findComment&comment=166040

 

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=29859

 

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...c=30061&hl=

 

http://www.hackint0sh.org/forum/showthread.php?t=360

 

Don

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OSX86Geek
OSX86Geek
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The installation went smooth as butter, restart was clean, go to boot into the fresh install... flashing cursor.

 

No extended partitions at all... Currently partitioned as follows:

 

/dev/disk0
  #:				   type name			   size	  identifier
  0: FDisk_partition_scheme					*189.9 GB disk0
  1:			  Apple_HFS iHack			  189.9 GB  disk0s1
/dev/disk1
  #:				   type name			   size	  identifier
  0: FDisk_partition_scheme					*189.9 GB disk1
  1:			  Apple_HFS Test			   20.0GB   disk1s1
  2:			  Apple_HFS Data			   169.9 GB  disk1s2

 

So far as I can tell, it should work (minus the partition being active...)

 

Did you bless the volume?

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