Boot without install DVD and Dual/Triple Boot

[mtb]

Hi,

 

I have installed OSx86 10.4.8 on my ASUS P5W DH Deluxe. I have one 200GB SATA and one 200GB PATA. Currently in bios I have selected my DVD Drive to boot first then the PATA hard disk to boot and then the SATA.

 

I have OSx86 installed on the PATA and XP on the SATA.

At the moment I can only boot OSx86 if I leave the install DVD in and let it load and if I want to load XP I just press F8 and boot from SATA. If I don't put the install DVD in I just get the blinking _ in the top left hand corner.

 

What I would like to do is

 

1) Not have to leave the install DVD in for OSx86 to load.

 

2) Have some sort of dual boot where I can select between OSx86 and XP rather than the F8.

 

3) I plan to install Vista (probably also on the SATA) soon is there any way to have a triple boot option.

 

Thank You

 

T

[mtb]

Can anyone help?

T

[demonio]

The problem is that here are too few toplevel threads. Maybe asking the moderator to open a new one, maybe something like " Problem with booting osx86"?

 

Slowly seems to me that there´s no way to boot without DVD inserted. I posted soo many posts, asking for resolving the problem, and I presume, the couple of kindly users and moderators have more than one os on their machine. Many views and 2-3 replys. It seems like some problem with mbr or gpt or efi, active partition, blessing the correct files the correct way - who knows...There is definetely the correct way when you boot it from DVD - but how to put that on HD? Maybe somebody knows how the DVD boot procedure is going? Is the kernel on DVD or what? What is blessed and why - btw, how? I did 80% of research on this problem alone, reading manuals for fdisk, gpt, bless, installing, try-outs, grub, bootloaders, ecc - without positive result.I have one partition, and it´s active and one operating system - osx86 - Looks like here everybody wants to have 20 OS´s on the machine. And look below . Do i have some exotic hardware? Seems to me i don´t.

[cbmkgd]

One could argue that any non-apple hardware is exotic for osx... but i won't be that one.

 

Is it possible to boot without the dvd inserted? Of course it is. Why some can't? Don't know.

So many different guides/ways to install, and many ways to make subtle mistakes (or subtle unsaid details in the guides...); and also so many hardware differences between users.

 

For some it's the blinking cursor, for others it's the infamous hfs+ error, and then there are those that stop at the apple logo... and even then, when one can finally boot osx, there can be a multitude of other problems. Or not. It depends. For me things went well mostly; partly luck maybe.

 

Probably a survey of common problems, and their solutions when there are any, could be compiled and put somewhere. The OSx86 Wiki should be the appropriate place in principle, but although it contains some of the answers, a lot of these are buried here and there in this forum. There are also the Rammjet topics, stickied in the Tutorial/GeniusBar subforum which simplify some searches.

[btw, searching this forum through google (limiting search to ins.mac domain) would give better results than the current native forum search.]

 

Sorry if all this doesn't solve your particular problem: can't do much when one can't reproduce the said problem. Hopefully someone that has go through this same problem will come and give your some relief with an appropriate solution.

 

Good luck.

[mtb]

Hi,

Thanks for your replies.

Do you think it is best to install all operating systems on one hard disk partitioned or different hard disks.

I have 3 hard disks at the moment and I am unsure which way I should install the OS on them.

THANK YOU

[cbmkgd]

If you have more than one disk, then it's a good idea to use them. The way you did it (osx on pata, winxp on sata) is quite all right, and is not the problem.

 

Can you check if the partition osx is on is primary?

If it is, can you check if it is active?

If it isn't active, you can use Rammjet's guide to make it active.

 

If it is already an active primary, well, I don't know what next right now.

Looking at OSx86's Wiki HCL for Asus P5W, many were successful with this board.

 

/edit: two more things:

• i'd like a listing of all your partitions on that pata disk: location, type (primary, logical).
  
• i'd be curious to know the procedure you used to install osx, at least the beginning: how you created the partitioned, what guide you followed, etc. Maybe this could help, in the long run, to identify some common link between those that get this kind of problem.
  

[coolquasar]

Using Acronis OS Selector u can achieve dual boot between xp n Mac

[cbmkgd]

Indeed, Acronis OS Selector is a osx/win multi-boot method that has been suggested since around a year and a half here at InsanelyMac; most notably dilnalomo's guide in the Tutorial/GeniusBar subforum, which now is more than a year old, and which has presently almost 1600 responses, and almost 355 000 views.

 

But there are cases AOSS can't solve by itself, there are even cases where it has its own problems (not related to osx). Just search not only InsanelyMac but the official Acronis forum to see by yourself.

 

I'm not one to completely discourage the use of AOSS though; I even have a tutorial to show how to insert an osx icon into it.

But it's never my first choice when I recommend a bootloader: if OSX can't work by itself on an independent install, then it's better to know why, rather than try to compensate by a third party app; it's better to know how to install osx by itself without errors.

 

But hey, in the end, whatever works, right?