Kalyway IATKOS Blinking Cursor Fix

[mark blackett]

I tried using dd to write write boot0 to mbr and i that didn't work. it will boot up fine if i leave the ATIKOS dvd in the drive and press no keys it finds the right volume.. but without the CD it won't boot ?? how do i set my partition table right so that it boots without the DVD in the drive ??

 

????

gUYS, i INSTALLED IATKOS. aFTER INSTALLATION, i BOOTED IT WITH A BLINKING CURSOR ALSO.

 

tHEN i WENT INTO MY OTHER RUNNING oSX SYSTEM, CHECK WITH MY DISK MBR AND PARTITION VBR, FOUND OUT BOTH ARE W/O BOOTING RECORD.

 

tHEN i JUST USE DD TO WRITE BOOT0 TO MBR AND BOOT1H TO VBR, REBOOT! Bang!

[thedog66]

Anyone else have any idea? I checked all ideas on this thread and feel I'm out of luck. Thing is my Dell is practically a apple clone for hardware.

 

 

i have had the same problem...try to install it without video card and it will work :-)

[MilesR]

If anyone is still struggling with the blinking cursor (but booting ok with the DVD in the drive)...please see my post on Uphuck forums:

http://uphuck.ggrn.de/forum/showthread.php?t=1070

 

There is a handy utility on "Hiren's Boot CD" (in the MBR tools section) called "Partition Table Doctor".

In there I just selected the drive where I have OSX installed and used the option to "Rebuild MBR"

 

After that, my drive booted without any problem.

 

NOTES: It is an external USB drive, which has only 1 partition with OSX installed on it.

 

HTH

MilesR

[Nadeo]

Hmm - dont know why. Installing on external USB Drive works beautiful and without any Problems. Installing it on an IDE Drive -> blinking Cursor. Restoring or repairing the MBR doesn't work.

[KapLeung]

gUYS, i INSTALLED IATKOS. aFTER INSTALLATION, i BOOTED IT WITH A BLINKING CURSOR ALSO.

 

tHEN i WENT INTO MY OTHER RUNNING oSX SYSTEM, CHECK WITH MY DISK MBR AND PARTITION VBR, FOUND OUT BOTH ARE W/O BOOTING RECORD.

 

tHEN i JUST USE DD TO WRITE BOOT0 TO MBR AND BOOT1H TO VBR, REBOOT! Bang!

 

Hi envying,

 

Would you tell me how to do that (DD to write boot0....)? I think I have the same problems.

Thanks a lot.

[Synaesthesia]

Easiest solution: Install iAtkos via Pacifist. I've done it 3 times now! You need a functional Mac OS installation already though.

 

Thanks to envying for this tip

[Wesker]

I tried both Iatkos and Kalyway, and twice i saw the blinking cursor screen.

With Iatkos i've used the gparted livecd to set the boot flag on OS X partition and all is gone ok.

With Kalyway i tried same way but the partition was already flagged.

Still in trouble with that.

[Wesker]

I tried both Iatkos and Kalyway, and twice i saw the blinking cursor screen.

With Iatkos i've used the gparted livecd to set the boot flag on OS X partition and all is gone ok.

With Kalyway i tried same way but the partition was already flagged.

Still in trouble with that.

 

I got the problem: when installing Kalyway the partition in which you want to install must have a one-word name.

My problem was i renamed my partition Mac OS X, with MacOSX all was ok.

[jlbrown23]

I'll put my own two cents in here today since I finally got it working after many tries(leaving the DVD in worked for me, but some internal form of OCD needed to have it work without "tricks").

 

-I tried the GParted disk & managed to reset the boot flags, but I still couldn't get a bootable HD without the DVD.

-Then I used the iAtkos DVD to reinstall Darwin(the option is there in the same menu with Disk Utils). I did this with EFI set to "yes".

-After rebooting, I managed to get to OSX without the DVD! One small problem - it was a different drive(I had CCC'd my original Leo install to my biggest drive once I was comfortable it was functional. So the original smaller drive was the one that booted. This made sense since it was what I had boot flagged with GParted, but I had done the Darwin reinstall to the other drive so it was still a little strange).

-I booted up Gparted again and reset the boot flag to larger drive, but it wouldn't boot.

-I went back and did another Darwin reinstall to the larger drive(now that it was properly flagged) and it worked!

 

I am guessing that the main reason it took so many steps was just the order I did them in, but in case that isn't true I wanted to include the whole process. But my theory at this point is the following would have done the trick:

 

-Use Gparted to set the boot flag to the correct drive

-Do a Darwin reinstall to that drive using the iAtkos DVD

 

For Gparted I went with the "Force VESA configuration" option. You then get a file browser that comes up - pick the drive you want to boot from and right click on it. There is a manage option that comes up, and you can choose "boot". (be sure to deselect this for all of your other drives).

 

For the Darwin as I mention there is an option in the iAtkos install disk under the same menu as you use to start Disk Utils with to reinstall Darwin. It will ask you the disk, partition and whether you want EFI. I said "yes" to EFI, and to get the disk/partition info I ran disk util, selected the partition I wanted, did a right click and selected the "info" option (it shows "diskXsY" where X = the drive number(drive 0 - the 1st, 1 = the 2nd, etc) and Y = the partition (1 = 1st, etc).

 

On my setup I like to keep different OS's on different disks, so there was only one partition on each. Also, it is all SATA. Now that I have Leo on my main drive, I've converted my secondary drive to a Time Machine drive - so onboard internal backup drive! It used to be my Vista drive, but it has been so long since I booted Windows I thought I would put it to better use!

[joneslee85]

I ran into the same blinking cursor with r2 version of iATKOS. I tried the 'dd' way and 'GParted' active partition way but all failed on my Dell Dimension 9150. So I decided to try out your way, but I didn't know how to reinstall Darwin Bootloader EFI because iATKOS v1.0i r2 does not have the Darwin Bootloader utilities like the first release. Can you show me how to do it under Terminal? Thank you.

 

I'll put my own two cents in here today since I finally got it working after many tries(leaving the DVD in worked for me, but some internal form of OCD needed to have it work without "tricks").

 

-I tried the GParted disk & managed to reset the boot flags, but I still couldn't get a bootable HD without the DVD.

-Then I used the iAtkos DVD to reinstall Darwin(the option is there in the same menu with Disk Utils). I did this with EFI set to "yes".

-After rebooting, I managed to get to OSX without the DVD! One small problem - it was a different drive(I had CCC'd my original Leo install to my biggest drive once I was comfortable it was functional. So the original smaller drive was the one that booted. This made sense since it was what I had boot flagged with GParted, but I had done the Darwin reinstall to the other drive so it was still a little strange).

-I booted up Gparted again and reset the boot flag to larger drive, but it wouldn't boot.

-I went back and did another Darwin reinstall to the larger drive(now that it was properly flagged) and it worked!

 

I am guessing that the main reason it took so many steps was just the order I did them in, but in case that isn't true I wanted to include the whole process. But my theory at this point is the following would have done the trick:

 

-Use Gparted to set the boot flag to the correct drive

-Do a Darwin reinstall to that drive using the iAtkos DVD

 

For Gparted I went with the "Force VESA configuration" option. You then get a file browser that comes up - pick the drive you want to boot from and right click on it. There is a manage option that comes up, and you can choose "boot". (be sure to deselect this for all of your other drives).

 

For the Darwin as I mention there is an option in the iAtkos install disk under the same menu as you use to start Disk Utils with to reinstall Darwin. It will ask you the disk, partition and whether you want EFI. I said "yes" to EFI, and to get the disk/partition info I ran disk util, selected the partition I wanted, did a right click and selected the "info" option (it shows "diskXsY" where X = the drive number(drive 0 - the 1st, 1 = the 2nd, etc) and Y = the partition (1 = 1st, etc).

 

On my setup I like to keep different OS's on different disks, so there was only one partition on each. Also, it is all SATA. Now that I have Leo on my main drive, I've converted my secondary drive to a Time Machine drive - so onboard internal backup drive! It used to be my Vista drive, but it has been so long since I booted Windows I thought I would put it to better use!

[Hando567]

I got the problem: when installing Kalyway the partition in which you want to install must have a one-word name.

My problem was i renamed my partition Mac OS X, with MacOSX all was ok.

 

I tried this method with kalyway and it was completely successful. I am booting with Vista and Kalyway using darwin.

 

I had previously tried many methods and none worked, i tried this thinking why not since i had to reinstall anyway and it booted right up. I was using Mac HD as the name, i now used Leopard and it worked perfect. Done this way 3 times now and every time it has worked.

[vlad1966]

Hint: as mentioned previously: Use only 1 word (like "Leopard") when you install/format to name your HDD that you install OS X to.

This worked wonders for me. I was getting the b0 & blinking cursor before I did this. Now, no problem.

[S.SubZero]

I finally got a "reliable" fix for this by using a Windows XP CD. I boot off the CD, hit R for a recovery console, then run FIXMBR. Reboot, and bam, boot loader. I do only use a one-disk, one-partition setup though.

[zedzed]

S.SubZero - does your solution work only for people with MBR and not GUID?

I had GUID and tried your 'solution' and f-ed up my install

now - need to reinstall for 15th time

[trance4jim]

I had this issue and found the solution.Its just like everyone said including fixing mbr.I used hirens boot cd.

First make sure that the drive is formatted in mbr not guid (disk utility)Then when you install the darwin boot loader, that you set the right drive/partition  number.

Mine disk0s1, was drive number? 1 Partition number? 1 It will confirm the osx partion found.Look for confirmation.Run Installation of osx I used iAtkos first dvd

with just efi boot with c2d compatible settings, nothing else.Then reboot.

Next, I booted with achi off on my hirens boot cd.I went to MBR fixing software.I used partition table doctor.Then choose correct drive and choose rebuild mbr.

Then choose to make active.Most importantly, go to file and choose save changes. and reboot.Then, I turned achi back on (only for jmicron users)

it booted with dvd.Since I have more than 1 drive now, I had to choose to boot specific drive through bios.Now it boots without dvd perfectly.

[Rater]

I tried this method with kalyway and it was completely successful. I am booting with Vista and Kalyway using darwin.

 

I had previously tried many methods and none worked, i tried this thinking why not since i had to reinstall anyway and it booted right up. I was using Mac HD as the name, i now used Leopard and it worked perfect. Done this way 3 times now and every time it has worked.

Unusual, could you elaborate on this problem.  I used "Mac OS X86" for my Mac partition but it runs through installation fine for about 20 minutes.  Should it do this?  At the end it ends up with a yellow sign and said installation has failed with an unknown error.  Perhaps choosing "MacOSX" instead would remedy this, but it seems unusual that it should run through 90% of the installation routine.

[woko]

I've maybe something missed but...

I've installed Kalyway's 10.5.1, MBR on my HP 6720s with Vista Business on it. It has one disc and I've made another partition. Installation worked nicely, but after reboot, I've got a blinking cursor.

So I went here and tried a few things. First - when I boot with DVD inside, OSX loading screen shows up, the little circle thing rotated for a while, but then stops. I can see cursor resp. rotating color circle.  But I have no opinion, that's something doing on my harddisc. It's completely silent.

Gparted says, that disc is broken, and wouldn't load.

When I insert Vista disc and wanna go to recovery command line, I just couldn't. Installation starts. Some recovery options in the setup doesn't works. I can made a whole new installation of Vista apparently.

Any suggestions?

[0ldsch00lpunk]

I was able to fix the problem using gdisk (from Symantec Ghost). It's on Hiren's UBCD. The command line is as follows:

 

gdisk (disk#) /mbr

 

It rewrites the mbr and I was able to boot into iATKOS v1.0i RC2.

 

I'm going to try Kalyway 10.5.2 and the new iATKOS v2.0i

 

0ldsch00lpunk

[disciplezero]

I've got iAtkos v4i. It doesn't like spaces in the partition name. 25 installs to find that out, hopefully this saves someone some time.

[rbuicki]

go to terminal -> login

type diskutil list

fdisk -e /dev/rdisk"x" for x means the drive number, (no quotations)

flag "c" for c means the partition number

update

write -> y -> Q

 

reboot and see if that works

[Probo]

I have a really weird issue... If the machine (a desktop Gateway GT3020m) is turned off and you try to turn it on, it'll goes to the blinking cursor problem... no matter how many times you try to restart, is always the same.

 

BUT...! If I unplug the power cable and plug it again (even without to wait a few seconds) the machine starts (starts instantly because I set it at the BIOS) and load the Chameleon/Darwin boot loader and everything goes fine!

 

This is happen always the same (I reproduce the scenario a lot of times...) so I wonder if I may have a hardware issue added to the "normal" blinking cursor problem?

 

I had also tried with Gparted to set the flags, reinstall Chameleon EFI from OSxTools and active partition at terminal and nothing seems to help.

 

To add some info, I'm able to boot using the "iAtkos DVD install trick" or a "Boot Kabyl Bumby" instead... my HD is GUID and show 3 partitions at Gparted (first for EFI, flagged to boot -normally hidden-, second for OSx -almost the hole disk- with one word name, active and the third one, a small one named "storage" in FAT that I use to keep files and utilities to fix my instalation). I'm running 10.5.5 installed with iAtkos 4.1i and properly updated.

 

Any ideas? Does anyone could try to reproduce this on your machine? All comments will be appreciated!

 

Cheers!

[Konekted]

Booted with XP CD

From the Recovery Console, I typed

fixmbr

 

IT WORKS!!!

 

IATKOS Build 1.0ir2

 

 

Now, onto the next issue...

[ziggie216]

xp cd fixmbr did not work for me. I am able to boot w/ the leo dvd but w/o it, all I see is the blinking "_"

 

What is more confusing is that I had done a install probably 10+ times already.

T60 - worked out fine

T60P - worked the first then I decided to reinstall on a larger HD and thats when everthing went down hill. I had tried another HD that had vista on it earlier, same issue. Same partition and install method everytime.

[timbojill]

I need some help badly. A find of my gave me a ATKOS V7 disk and said just install it and I should be able to sual boot my Windowx XP (already installed) and MAC OSX. I put in the ATKOS v7 disk install the software now I getting the blinking screen. What is the simpliest way to troubleshoot this problem ?

 

I had this issue and found the solution.Its just like everyone said including fixing mbr.I used hirens boot cd.

First make sure that the drive is formatted in mbr not guid (disk utility)Then when you install the darwin boot loader, that you set the right drive/partition� number.

Mine disk0s1, was drive number? 1 Partition number? 1 It will confirm the osx partion found.Look for confirmation.Run Installation of osx I used iAtkos first dvd

with just efi boot with c2d compatible settings, nothing else.Then reboot.

Next, I booted with achi off on my hirens boot cd.I went to MBR fixing software.I used partition table doctor.Then choose correct drive and choose rebuild mbr.

Then choose to make active.Most importantly, go to file and choose save changes. and reboot.Then, I turned achi back on (only for jmicron users)

it booted with dvd.Since I have more than 1 drive now, I had to choose to boot specific drive through bios.Now it boots without dvd perfectly.

 

What does DD mean ?