Can boot successfully with Install DVD o/w NO?

[fissioner]

hey guys i've had a problem for a long while whereby i can boot fine if i boot with the install dvd and ignore the countdown, which then boots my (BIOS chosen) hard drive. if i try to boot without the dvd in or by skipping the dvd drive in the boot sequence, i get an underscore that blinks a couple times and then moves down a line then continues to blink undendingly.

 

there are no errors, just the underscore. this is weird because everything works PERFECTLY if i boot with the dvd in.

 

any ideas?

[Guest Ramm]

Set your partition as active.

[fissioner]

more info: the volume i want to boot off of is disk2. here is my diskutil list:

 

xxxxxxxx:~ xxx$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
  #:                   type name               size      identifier
  0: Apple_partition_scheme                    *76.3 GB  disk0
  1:    Apple_partition_map                    31.5 KB   disk0s1
  2:              Apple_HFS xxxxxxxxx            76.2 GB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
  #:                   type name               size      identifier
  0: FDisk_partition_scheme                    *115.0 GB disk1
  1:              Apple_HFS xxxxxxxxx     115.0 GB  disk1s1
/dev/disk2
  #:                   type name               size      identifier
  0: FDisk_partition_scheme                    *232.9 GB disk2
  1:              Apple_HFS xxxxxxxxx      232.9 GB  disk2s1
/dev/disk3
  #:                   type name               size      identifier
  0:  GUID_partition_scheme                    *232.9 GB disk3
  1:                    EFI                    200.0 MB  disk3s1
  2:              Apple_HFS xxxxxxxxx     232.6 GB  disk3s2
/dev/disk4
  #:                   type name               size      identifier
  0: Apple_partition_scheme                    *4.4 GB   disk4
  1:    Apple_partition_map                    31.5 KB   disk4s1
  2:              Apple_HFS xxxxxxxxx     4.4 GB    disk4s3

 

here is fdisk for rdisk2:

 

xxxxxxxx:~ xxx$ sudo fdisk -e /dev/rdisk2  
Enter 'help' for information
fdisk: 1> print
Disk: /dev/rdisk2       geometry: 30401/255/63 [488397168 sectors]
Offset: 0       Signature: 0xAA55
        Starting       Ending
#: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*1: AF    0   1   1 - 1023 254  63 [        63 -  488397105] HFS+       
2: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused     
3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused     
4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused     
fdisk: 1> 

 

as you can see, the volume i want to boot has the correct partition set to active... is there something wrong that i'm missing?

[fissioner]

ok i fixed the problem. i thought that i had already tried updating the MBR, but perhaps i had never saved it when exiting fdisk:

 

> sudo fdisk -e /dev/rdisk2

fdisk: 1> update

fdisk: 1> write (and confirm)

fdisk: 1> quit

 

MAKE SURE that you have rewritten the machine code to your block... you can easily exit the fdisk interaction without actually updating your MBR

 

http://developer.apple.com/documentation/D...n8/fdisk.8.html