[Howto] Recover HFS+ partition error after Vista installation

[braveskunk]

This guide is for restoring our nice, working hackintosh's darwin bootloader.

 

Basically, Vista RTM foobars our working MBR's bootloader and you get "HFS+ partition error".

In following, I will assume we have one HDD with two partitions: part#1 = OSX and part#2 = Vista

 

1. Boot off OSX dvd disc in single user mode (press F8 and type -s)

2. At single user prompt

fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0

flag 1

update

write

quit

4 reboot

 

At this point OSX should boot up, just like prior to Vista installation.

1 In a terminal window,

su root

fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0

flag 2

quit

2 reboot

 

Vista will say "\Window\system32\winload" corrupted, and it will tell you to insert Vista disc and recover.

Follow directions from Vista and recover, then reboot. Check Vista boots and works fine.

 

1. Boot off OSX dvd disc for single user one last time (press F8 and type -s)

2. At single user prompt

fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0

flag 1

quit

3. reboot

 

You will discover that Vista recovered and left MBR's darwin bootloader intact .

Happy ending.

 

great guide!!!! i took me 3hours searching for the solution but finally i found your tutorial and made vista and leopard live togheter:D:D:D

THANKS A LOT!

BTW, i first installed VISTA, then shrink second partition, created with AF flag, installed the leo on the third(created partition) which gave me the HFS+ error but now its working, thanks to you!!!

[willpower101]

I don't understand the part where you boot with the vista cd and repair the disk? Whenever I do any of this, no matter the order, the repair option in vista never shows any drive.

 

Also how do I check and/or set the osx partition to PRIMARY with the osx diskutility or the terminal's fdisk?

[willpower101]

Yay. I managed to get my first dual boot working after 4 days, 5 installs of vista and 8 installs of osx later.

 

Big thing that none of the faqs seem to point out. THIS DOESN'T WORK WITH A GUID DRIVE!

Or at least I don't think it does, because one of the other things I kept accidentally reading over was to BOOT INTO SINGLE USER MODE WITH -S.

 

Here's what I tried:

Started with a vista install.

Wiped the disk

Created 2 partitions

Install vista on part1

confirmed that it worked

Tried to install osx on part 2 but for some reason it wouldn't work.

 

Started again.

Booted into osx installer.

Wiped the drives partitions

Created 2 partitions

left part1 as unused space

formatted part 2 as osx journaled with MBR instead of GUID selected under more options

DID NOT INSTALL OSX at this point.

 

Rebooted into vista install cd.

Installed vista, tested reboot.

 

Rebooted into osx install cd.

Didn't have to mess with any disk utilities just installed osx sleep kernal with basics for my rig. (found in forum)

got to osx didn't update at all.

pulled cd out and rebooted

got HFS+ PARTITION ERROR

 

Now the op's guide starts.

Placed the disk in and made SURE to boot with -s for SINGLE USER MODE

followed his guide to the letter except reversing the drive numbers

use the command "p" when in fdisk utility to verify drive order and make sure i'm hitting the right one.

 

Tried to boot windows, error was given like what's supposed to happen.

(i'm using server 2008 and it would NOT detect the mbr being messed up)

So I popped in vista and as soon as I hit repair on the gui it detected the problem and fixed it.

Tested reboot

 

Booted back into osx terminal with -s single user mode

Followed the guide specifically, meaning, i didn't use "update" or "write" the second time around.

 

Now I have a system that auto boots into osx, and I can select vista (server 2008) whenever I want.

The only downside is that I have to have 2 OS's on the same drive using mbr. Vmware fusion would work much quicker if they were on separate drives. That's my next undertaking.

[saqib786]

TopazBar, Thank you SO MUCH! I just registered so I could say thanks! I actually had 3 partitions, but a little extrapolation of your explanation fixed my problem! The only question I had was that I only have 3 partitions, but why was I able to set 'flag 4' (and confirmation partition 4 active)?

[NoobCompositor]

Those of you running into problems because you don't have a password for the "su root" command:

 

In the terminal window, type:

 

sudo passwd root

 

Then you will be able to determine the password.

[Injerto]

THANK YOUUUU it worked flawlessly to me

[Dude27]

My problem: I installed first OSX (IAktos 5.5i), my partition list gives me that in Vista installer:

1- 200 megas unknows???

2- HFS/OSX partition 298GB - Active

3- FAT/NTFS partition 298GB - Active (created within VISTA with the format option in the installer from left free space)

Result: cannot install vista: "Windows is unable to find ..." message which block Vista to install

 

Do I have to use FDisk within Darwin and do:

flag 3 then reboot on the Vista install DVD to make it possible Vista installation? (then from this to follow your guide to find back the darwin bootloader)

 

or do I have to do it from the begining installing vista first? (which I dread because I put so much energy to finally get IAKtos to work)

 

Thanks for your future help!

[seamonkey420]

thanks a ton for this post!

 

i've noticed that step 1 seems to fix a ton of bootloader related problems like when iDeneb seems to fubar your bootloader and you get the cannot boot message after installing.

 

also, once you do this after installing vista once, you usually don't have to redo the fix if you reformat the partition vs deleting it.

 

my hp setup:

 

partition 1: os x leopard

partition 2: vista/win7

[johnnysack]

Hi,

I am getting this error. However I have not got Windows installed. The hard drive is formatted to FAT32. What could I do? I am getting the error while trying to install iDeneb 10.5.5, therefore I have nothing installed on the hard drive.