changing osx86 default start

[Chrisp7]

At the moment when I boot up a list of OS's from Windows Vistas boot screen shows up:

 

Vista

XP

OSX

 

Both Vista and XP boot up fine, when I select OSX, the screen goes blank for 1/2 second then back to the boot screen again. However if I select OSX then press F8 quickly OSX's boot selection comes up and I can choose OSX and boot in. Is there a way I can get OSX just to boot up automatically when I select OSX in the Vista bootup screen? (ie remove all other bootup options in my OSX boot screen.

 

I hope this makes sense!

 

Cheers

 

Chris:)

[hecker]

You need to set an option called Quiet Boot to YES in your darwin bootloader.

 

- Quiet Boot - if set to yes the OS boots straight to the GUI without showing the bootloader, if set to no it boots to the

bootloader first. To use the chain0 boot method this MUST be set to 'No'. To access the bootloader when this is set to

'Yes' bash F8 repeatedly during boot till it displays.

 

It's all explained here : http://neonkoala.co.uk/content/view/33/34/

 

hecker

 

EDIT: You have to set it to YES and not to NO.

Edited February 28, 2007 by hecker

[Chrisp7]

hmm that is helpful to make it not visible..however the 'default' loading OS isnt OSX its an NTFS volume - how can I make Darwin's default OS OSX?

Edited February 28, 2007 by Chrisp7

[Chrisp7]

oops

[hecker]

Does it boot to the NTFS volume when you pick OSX from the list in Vista's bootloader?

 

Can you tell me how many drives do you have in your PC and where each OS resides?

Edited February 28, 2007 by hecker

[Chrisp7]

I didnt actually risk it because I was worried that if I changed Darwin like that then I would never be able to access OSX (Or have to do a complete reinstall). When the Darwin bootloader comes up, the default is an NTFS volume, so I would assume that that volume would stil be selected in silent mode.

 

I have 1 drive at the moment but with 4 partitions - OSX being number 2 (set as a Primary)

Edited February 28, 2007 by Chrisp7

[hecker]

Ok, I checked that darwin site I posted before and it said that you need to specify a partition to boot in the darwin bootloader.

To find out which partition you need, type the following in a terminal window from within OSX:

diskutil list

It will display a list with the available partitions. Write down or make a mental note of your OSX partition's identifier.

 

Then add this replacing disk0s1 with the correct identifier:

<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>rd=disk0s1</string>

 

to the /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist file.

 

hecker

Edited February 28, 2007 by hecker

[Chrisp7]

hmm strange it doesnt seem to change anything for some reason, I have copied across and authenticated the file this is what it reads at the moment:

 

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

<key>Kernel</key>

<string>mach_kernel</string>

<key>Kernel Flags</key>

<string>rd=disk0s1</string>

<key>Boot Graphics</key>

<string>Yes</string>

<key>Quiet Boot</key>

<string>Yes</string>

</dict>

</plist>

 

ps Thanks very much indeed for all the help you have given so far I really appreciate it.

[Chrisp7]

Heckler I think have discovered that what you have said to do is working, what it seems to be doing is changing the OSX boot partition, not the default OS. Is there a way to do this?

 

(I think that as when I added <string>rd=disk0s2</string> it booted up fine when selecting OSX in the menu however when I added my 2nd hard disk the system just wouldnt boot. So I removed the disk, it booted, I changed the text to <string>rd=disk1s2</string>, shut down, added the 2nd hard disk and it booted!)

 

Is it possible to do that?

 

I hope I am making sense?

 

Thanks v much

 

Chris

Edited March 2, 2007 by Chrisp7

[hecker]

(I think that as when I added <string>rd=disk0s2</string> it booted up fine when selecting OSX in the menu however when I added my 2nd hard disk the system just wouldnt boot. So I removed the disk, it booted, I changed the text to <string>rd=disk1s2</string>, shut down, added the 2nd hard disk and it booted!)

I didn't quite understand. Is this what you DID or what you plan on doing?

 

hecker

[Chrisp7]

I didn't quite understand. Is this what you DID or what you plan on doing?

 

hecker

 

Thats what I did, and it seems just to change the OSX boot partition.

 

Maybe we'll really need to patch the bootloader http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=42235

 

I have the same boot screen as you but I didnt ever install GRUB, its Darwin isnt it!?

 

This is what I get (after selecting OSX and pressing f8 quickly):

 

Darwin/86 boot v5.0.132

2047 Memory

VESA v3.0 256Mb (Nvidia)

 

(hd0,1) Vista

(hd0,2) OSX

(hd0,3) XP

(hd0,5) Music Photos Downloads

 

(these actually are all names of some of my HDD partitions)

 

edit My OSX is setup on a Primary Partition..

Edited March 2, 2007 by Chrisp7

[hecker]

Ok, I think I misunderstood what you really meant at the beginning.

What you really want to do is to set the default OS in your Vista's bootloader, right?

 

This is a (slightly modified) portion of this article: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/driver/tips/debug_vista.mspx

 

8. Change the default boot entry.

 

The default boot entry is the boot entry that the boot manager selects when the boot menu timeout expires. Unlike earlier versions of Windows, in Windows Vista the order of boot entries in the boot menu (the display order) does not determine which boot loader entry is the default.

 

By default, the Microsoft Windows boot entry that the system creates is the default entry. Because the default entry is also the boot entry that is used to boot the system most recently, it is identified as {current}.

 

Use the following command.

bcdedit /default {ID}

 

where {ID} is the GUID of the boot entry you need.

 

You can find the GUID by entering the following command:

bcdedit /enum osloader

 

Read the MS article to gain some insight on the new Vista bootloader.

 

hecker

Edited March 2, 2007 by hecker

[Chrisp7]

No, you understood correctly the first time:) What I'd love to do is; from the Windows bootloader, when I select OSX (not default) that it boot straightaway into OSX rather than go to the Darwin boot screen (as above).

 

ps basically the same as probono.

Edited March 2, 2007 by Chrisp7

[soulsniper]

You may or may not have already looked at this, but is your OSX partition the active partition?

 

From what I've read, the Darwin bootloader automatically boots the first active partition on the machine. If you set your OSX partition to Active, I believe OSX should then just boot when selected.

 

I could be wrong

[Chrisp7]

If I made OSX active then would that make the vista partition inactive? Making vista not startup?

[eugmoon]

If I made OSX active then would that make the vista partition inactive? Making vista not startup?

 

The reason you're having this problem is that OS X/Darwin's bootloader automatically boots whichever partition is marked as active.

 

Right now, your Vista partition is active, which is why you're seeing Vista's bootloader first, have to select OS X, and then see OS X's bootloader second (when you press F8).

 

Unfortunately, as was mentioned earlier, since OS X's bootloader defaults to whichever partition is marked active, there's no way to tell it to automatically boot OS X without marking the OS X partition active, and making the OS X bootloader the first bootloader you see.

 

So, there is no way to first load Vista's bootloader, select OS X, and then load directly into OS X. There's always going to be the middle step of selecting OS X again in OS X's bootloader.

 

Now, if you wanted to be able to just select an OS once when you start your computer up and have it boot directly, and you don't mind OS X being the default OS if you don't select anything, then you can mark your OS X partition as active, and set up your other OS's so that they no longer give you a choice of which OS to load. (In other words, set Vista up so that it only loads Vista and Linux so that it only loads Linux, or whatever.) But, like I said, this means OS X is what automatically boots if you don't select anything.

 

I, personally, still need Windows to be my default, so I just put up with having to select OS X twice each time I start up my computer. (It's only 3 extra key presses since I have OS X's bootloader on a 10-second timer.)

 

HTH

 

Edit:

Oh, and to answer your question, making some partition other than Vista's active does not make Vista's inactive. It just makes it not the default.

Edited March 2, 2007 by eugmoon