Darwin Boot Load customization

[netchainer]

Hello

i have a dual boot with windows ans osx, put in com.apple.Boot.plist

<key>Timeout</key>

<string>5</string>

to have the time to press a key and choice what s.o. start.

i would like to highlight by default windows.

i just found a post where tells to insert

<key>Kernel Flags</key>

<string>rd=disk0s1</string> (it is right, disk0 and partition 1 are the right pointer of my windows partition)

 

but i have a kernel error.

Sincerly for me seems strange that have to be set as kernel flags.

 

Have you any suggestion?

 

Regards

RMa

[Kaspers]

Making the Windows partition active does the job.

[netchainer]

Making the Windows partition active does the job.

 

This works but i have no dual boot

it starts windows without use darwin but win mbr.

to have again dual boot i need to set active macos partition

Thanks for the the reply however

ciaooo

[zarac]

there is no way of changing darwin bootloader's default boot drive.

try the "chain0" method - works on most machines i tried.

[Schweppes]

Yes, you can set Windows as default OS in darwin bootloader.

 

Try this: (you need to give a name to your Windows partition in Windows before start)

 

1) in Terminal type this:

 

sudo -s

your password

sudo bless -mount /Volumes/Windows -setBoot

 

2) Edit com.apple.Boot.plist if is necessary to have time to choose your OS.

 

 

IT`S ALL !!!

 

Good luck!

[zarac]

nice one, Schweppes!

i got frustrated trying to find a solution like this one. fortunately chain0 method works nice for me.

but since i have 2 working osx installations on my machine (regular + testing one), i'll try fiddling with the darwin bootmenu.

 

thanks!

[cbmkgd]

/edited (july 7th): didn't work for me, although no error messages; see below.

[Zorro56]

Thanks for the tip, but it doesn't work:

Could not find IODeviceTree:/options

 

Can you help me please ?

[netchainer]

Yes, you can set Windows as default OS in darwin bootloader.

 

Try this: (you need to give a name to your Windows partition in Windows before start)

 

1) in Terminal type this:

 

sudo -s

your password

sudo bless -mount /Volumes/Windows -setBoot

 

2) Edit com.apple.Boot.plist if is necessary to have time to choose your OS.

 

 

IT`S ALL !!!

 

Good luck!

 

Thanks a lot Schweppes

the same as Zorro 56, when i digit sudo bless -mount /Volume/WindowsXP -setBoot i recive same error:

Could not find IODeviceTree:/options

 

Thanks a lot for reply however

Ciao

Roby

[Ishiro]

I've also the IODeviceTree error. Could someone help us ?

 

Thanks.

[cbmkgd]

Those who have the error messages above could have spaces in the Windows partition name.

e.g. if your windows volume label is "Win XP", then you might have to use

 

sudo bless -mount "/Volumes/Win XP" -setBoot

 

****

 

As for me, I tried Schweppes' trick, but it only made my Win partition active, so that on reboot it went directly to ntldr, not passing through the darwin bl.

 

Notes: yes, the timeout in com.apple.boot.plist was properly done; yes, i did press F8 just in case.

It was easy to check that my win partition was now active, and I got back to the usual darwin bootloader by resetting osx's partition as active (and osx was is of course again the default boot os, which is ok by me).

Re-reading the info for bless, I shouldn't have been surprised of the outcome though.

[netchainer]

Those who have the error messages above could have spaces in the Windows partition name.

e.g. if your windows volume label is "Win XP", then you might have to use

 

sudo bless -mount "/Volumes/Win XP" -setBoot

 

****

Tried also this, nothing changed, same error.

thanks however

[cbmkgd]

Sorry it didn't work.

 

But I have a question for those for whom the trick worked: what version of bless are you using?

( bless -info -version )

 

Mine is an older bless v. 24.0 (from myz/tubgirl's 10.4.9, probably hybridized from 10.4.4).

[Zorro56]

One may observe it only works with FAT32 partitions (which are writable and readable). Try to mount your NTFS Windows partitions automatically at every boot using ntfs-3g (not the default one), by editing your fstab for instance. I can't do it now because I'm not at home.