Jump to content
10 posts in this topic

Recommended Posts

okay so let's recap shall we? i was able to bless an efi folder and run an efi shell. from that shell i was able to boot the cdboot.efi file from the vista files that was on my usb hard drive in a folder called "vista" (should be noted that if i didn't put them in separate folder but in the usb root folder, i couldn't get to the "press any key to boot from cd..." message). and yes i did try running it with the vista dvd in the computer and that didn't help.

 

i just downloaded the elilo efi for the i386 arch (the 3.5 pre 1 version) and put it at the root of my usb drive, and that seemed to hang when i tried that to.

 

missing anything?

Link to comment
https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/7257-efi-the-intel-imac-and-you/
Share on other sites

From th elilo read me.

 

This package is known to compile and produce working binaries

when used in conjunction with gnu-efi-3.0a. This package is

available from the HP Labs FTP site:

 

ftp://ftp.hpl.hp.com/pub/linux-ia64/gnu-efi-3.0a.tar.gz

 

 

I'm not sure if it needs gnu-efi to boot, or just to compile elilo.

okay so let's recap shall we? i was able to bless an efi folder and run an efi shell. from that shell i was able to boot the cdboot.efi file from the vista files that was on my usb hard drive in a folder called "vista" (should be noted that if i didn't put them in separate folder but in the usb root folder, i couldn't get to the "press any key to boot from cd..." message). and yes i did try running it with the vista dvd in the computer and that didn't help.

 

i just downloaded the elilo efi for the i386 arch (the 3.5 pre 1 version) and put it at the root of my usb drive, and that seemed to hang when i tried that to.

 

missing anything?

 

Can the cdboot.efi file be edited to look for the DVD files on the DVD, instead of the directory where you have the EFI files?

 

I can't remember where I saw it, but another thread showed that someone had burned the EFI files to a disc and booted it. Maybe a disc such as that could be burned, with an edited cdboot.efi file, along with the Vista install files.

 

Because Apple is using a new partition scheme for the file system, does this mean that if you fubar the drive with another OS, that Mac OS X won't recognize it? I wonder how Disk Utility has been modified to allow for the new file system.

 

I have a feeling that any bootable disc (be it hard drive or DVD/CD) needs to be in the new file system format to work. :blink:

 

On a side note, kinkadius, can you (from a fresh boot), paste the top portion of TOP from the terminal window so that I can see what sort of memory useage the real Intel Macs use (I would have asked on the other thread but it was closed for too many people talking off-topic). :offtopic:

 

Also, what build number of Vista are you using?

Edited by stryder

Okieday. I've been poking around inside of the bootmgr.efi for the latest build of vista and have found an interesting line using hexedit. It is:

 

Edit: argh..i just had to retype part of this post. PHP eats it every time i post a message with a %d in it....wonder why ;-) ;-) ;-)

 

So does anybody know enough about the hardware to know if this line, or changing it, is of any use to us?

 

multi(0)disk(0)cdrom(%d)

I don't thing it will help, because this should be something dynamic, because you can have a CDROM on any port that you have in the computer and be able to boot from it.

 

I think you need someone with bios/EFI knowledge to be able to trick the installation for booting from the USB and going to the CDROM.

 

But has anybody tries with a large usb key >1gig to but all the installation files on it...

 

 

Okieday. I've been poking around inside of the bootmgr.efi for the latest build of vista and have found an interesting line using hexedit. It is:

 

Edit: argh..i just had to retype part of this post. PHP eats it every time i post a message with a %d in it....wonder why ;-) ;-) ;-)

 

So does anybody know enough about the hardware to know if this line, or changing it, is of any use to us?

 

multi(0)disk(0)cdrom(%d)

I don't thing it will help, because this should be something dynamic, because you can have a CDROM on any port that you have in the computer and be able to boot from it.

 

I think you need someone with bios/EFI knowledge to be able to trick the installation for booting from the USB and going to the CDROM.

 

Well, while the variable (the "percent d", hehe) does likely mean that's a dynamic path...who's to say we can't rewrite it with one specific to the location the disk is on kinkadius' iMac? We just need to know it ;-D

 

Edit: A stupid possibility...maybe changing the "percent d" to 0? If you look at a booting windows machine, it does not dynamically address the optical drive but rather just calls it cdrom(0)

 

Now, mind you, this is when it is being booted from the cd, so we might have to burn a modified vista installer here.

 

As for making it redirect to his hard drive... should be just something like

 

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(partitionnumberhere)\vistainstallcdfolder

 

That's just if they exactly copied the syntax used in windows booting. Can't say if they did, but from the ascii in the bootmgr.efi, it seems similar.

 

Edit number two!

 

kinkadius, can you do this quick experiment for me?

 

Insert the Vista DVD into your mac when OSX is running. Open System Profiler.

Click ATA in the left pane. Then on the right click on the Vista Installer disk.

I am wanting the BSD Name of the partition on the vista installer disk. Should look something like disk#s# (with the #'s actually being numbers)

 

Hope I didn't confuse you there :-D

With this I am hoping to get closer to how we need to modify this EFI

Edited by cybergamer
Well, while the variable (the "percent d", hehe) does likely mean that's a dynamic path...who's to say we can't rewrite it with one specific to the location the disk is on kinkadius' iMac? We just need to know it ;-D

 

Edit: A stupid possibility...maybe changing the "percent d" to 0? If you look at a booting windows machine, it does not dynamically address the optical drive but rather just calls it cdrom(0)

 

Now, mind you, this is when it is being booted from the cd, so we might have to burn a modified vista installer here.

 

As for making it redirect to his hard drive... should be just something like

 

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(partitionnumberhere)\vistainstallcdfolder

 

That's just if they exactly copied the syntax used in windows booting. Can't say if they did, but from the ascii in the bootmgr.efi, it seems similar.

 

Edit number two!

 

kinkadius, can you do this quick experiment for me?

 

Insert the Vista DVD into your mac when OSX is running. Open System Profiler.

Click ATA in the left pane. Then on the right click on the Vista Installer disk.

I am wanting the BSD Name of the partition on the vista installer disk. Should look something like disk#s# (with the #'s actually being numbers)

 

Hope I didn't confuse you there :-D

With this I am hoping to get closer to how we need to modify this EFI

 

putting it in now... here's all the info

 

MAT{censored}ADVD-R UJ-846:

 

Capacity: 1.98 GB

Model: MAT{censored}ADVD-R UJ-846

Revision: FB2U

Serial Number:

Removable Media: Yes

Detachable Drive: No

BSD Name: disk2

Protocol: ATAPI

Unit Number: 0

Socket Type: Internal

OS9 Drivers: No

S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported

 

 

Also, what build number of Vista are you using?

 

 

latest build.

I think that for Itanium, justin.

 

I am not exactly sure what you mean, but that version of ELILO definitely supports IA32 too (Itanium is IA64), or least there are clearly both IA32 and IA64 piece in the soure code.

 

This is from the documentation found in the soure:

 

This document describes how to use ELILO on for both IA-64 and IA-32 EFI-based platforms.

 

 

:idea: @kinkadius - I would like to suggest that you try booting a Linux kernal with ELILO on your Mac. I think you would be the first to show any other OS running the EFI Macs, it should be easier than dealing with Windows Vista and also a good learning experience (you may learn how to boot Vista this way).

 

:offtopic: I am also interested to know what the story with dual-channel RAM on your Core Duo Mac. Are you running two RAM modules? If you, can you tell if you have dual-channel RAM.

Edited by bofors
×
×
  • Create New...