Kwaaku Posted March 31, 2008 Share Posted March 31, 2008 problem solved see How to install Darwing in its own partition?, Non working methods included in this section kwaaku Wise Gurus Been running osx for about 10 days now: Quad booting XP, OSX5.1, OSX5.2 and Kubuntu on a single HD using grub bootloader. Now I cant boot either OSX partition -grub gives me an error 18 or stage2geom, for the originall osx install & image partitions respectively. I read that means boot sector track out of range of BIOS. how i installed: I already had XP so I made 2 hfs+ partitions & one for kubuntu. Installed osx5.1 (MBR), installed Kubuntu & grub then rewrote my MBR to boot XP. ran kubuntu live disk & reconfigured grub, adding a chainloader --force +1 command to boot osx. Then I imaged my fresh osx install to my spare hfs+ partition. so when I reboot I get grub, if I pick my original osx install from the menu it sends me to the darwin bootloader, f8 gives me the choice of either osx partition or xp. So now I can boot any partition My plan: only ever alter the image: upgrade to 10.5.2, switch kernels, add apps etc. My original install is never altered -in case I break & cant boot it. How I messed up: I finally finished configuring my image so was satisfied, it always boots & is stable. Then in disk utility I erased my original install & restored my fully configured osx partition to it. now I cant boot either osx partition only XP or kubuntu. what I assumed: When I imaged my original installation to my other partition that would include the osx darwin bootloader. So when I imaged it back again it would be written back to where it started. I thought that having 2 images to boot from I was safe -obviously not. Maybe I should have fixed the darwin bootloader on my image so I could use it to boot straight from grub & not via my original install , then if I broke one of my osx partitions I would still be able to boot the other- having 2 working darwin bootloaders. I just dont have this 2 bootable osx partition thing worked out, perhaps other newbies are in a similar situation. Would anyone mind giving me some advice please? -even if its just to point me in the right direction TIA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wmarsh Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 Another bit of advice -- how I backup so as to never get this problem. Backing up working install before doing something dangerous -- like installing updates with software update is highly advisable. I do this by using dd for windows to copy my OS X partition to a file inside a larger NTFS partition. NTFS because with Fuse and NTFS-3g my data partition is r/w accessible with all my OSs. For me, using dd for Windows, the syntax is: dd if=\\?\Device\Harddisk1\Partition2 of=.\1052 bs=65536 Obviously, your syntax would vary (different disk & partition). If you use Linux dd to copy to an ext3 partition, the equivalent syntax is different: dd if=/dev/sdb2 of=./1052 bs=65536 Restoration is done by switching if and of entries. Read man dd before doing this as this is easy to screw up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kwaaku Posted April 1, 2008 Author Share Posted April 1, 2008 many thanks, your post is right on the money. Seems you had read my mind. I have posted on forums looking for advice on how to incorporate my hfs+ partition in my backup strategy, but thats the best advice I have heard . looks like dd is the way to go. I had never heard of dd for windows -it sounds great. I switched to Ghost2003 from linux for backups because I like the gui. I make too many command line mistakes in linux when I am tired. I was also suprised to find that my hfs+ partition is mounted as readonly in kubuntu, so maybe i need to check how I mount it, or just use dd to write it to ntfs for editing. Until os x I had been using a ghost2003 boot cd to back up my ntfs & ext3 partitions, also to image my ibm drive as it contains a hidden service partition & a non standard boot track (with the IB option ghost images the whole thing including the boot track). Ive used partimage before but have always been a bit wary of dd. I had been experimenting with dumping my whole drive to an (.img) image on my (ntfs) usb drive using ghost2003, but without much faith. Really, thanks again for your wisdom Now I want to try an tiger install, to see if I can get QE going on my graphics card. Thinking I might be better off with tiger as my card doesnt have any drivers for leopard (I think). backing up os x reliably will give me some confidence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pianimator Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 Now I want to try an tiger install, to see if I can get QE going on my graphics card. Thinking I might be better off with tiger as my card doesnt have any drivers for leopard (I think). backing up os x reliably will give me some confidence. I just upgraded the hard drive on my Motion LE 1700 tablet from 30 gig to 80 gig. I cloned Windows XP from the smaller drive to a 60 gig NTFS partition and kept the remainder a FAT 32 partition so that I could install Tiger on it. Tiger installed perfectly and boots quickly, but now the Windows partition only shows up on my Mac desktop as a read only disk and is no longer a bootable partition (it booted from the XP partition before I installed Tiger). What did I do wrong? Is there a way to get the Bios to recognize both partitions as separate boot drives? I'd sure like to get this working with the drive partitioned as it is, because the Mac OS is surprisingly fast on the partition that it resides. Only problem is, I can only write to essentially 25% of the total storage capacity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wmarsh Posted April 2, 2008 Share Posted April 2, 2008 Is there a way to get the Bios to recognize both partitions as separate boot drives? I'd sure like to get this working with the drive partitioned as it is, because the Mac OS is surprisingly fast on the partition that it resides. Only problem is, I can only write to essentially 25% of the total storage capacity. The Bios can't boot different partitions on the same drive, thats what a bootloader is for. I use grub as bootloader -- others use other things. http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...mp;#entry606752 OS X can't write to NTFS natively. To do this I use MacFuse and NTFS-3g http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/ http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/24481/ntfs-3g Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pianimator Posted April 2, 2008 Share Posted April 2, 2008 The Bios can't boot different partitions on the same drive, thats what a bootloader is for. I use grub as bootloader -- others use other things.http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...mp;#entry606752 OS X can't write to NTFS natively. To do this I use MacFuse and NTFS-3g http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/ http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/24481/ntfs-3g Thanks for the quick reply. I'm most interested in dual booting - writing to the NTFS partition in OS X is not my primary goal. I've been trying to wrap my feeble mind around Grub but don't quite get the varied instructions. Do i install grub on the Tiger partition (the only booting partition now)? I continue to come across vocabulary that is beyond my grasp. What is a 'kernal flag'? In what program do I make changes to 'Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist'. As you can surmise, my knowledge is limited - any explicit help is appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kwaaku Posted April 2, 2008 Author Share Posted April 2, 2008 Pianimator I dont have much experience my self, But I can help a bit I think. My suggestion: is to download & burn a Super Grub Boot Disc from the internet (google it). You can boot from it, and one of the options is to boot into windows. Once you are in windows you can install WinGrub, a version of grub to be used in windows (so presumably installed in the ntfs partition) -rather than linux. The grub disk is a handy thing to have anyway. If you use a simple MBR_efi setup & grub to multi boot, This is the process involved in booting (as far as I can tell): The MBR (in the first sector of you hard drive) always runs first at boot, this kicks the OS to "run" grub (wherever you installed it). Then grub (when you pick osx from grubs menu) "chainloads" it to pc_efi (wherever thats installed) & pc_efi then kicks it to the Darwin Bootloader (part of OS X). Darwin will start osx for you. It all sounds very complicated, but a lot of this is installed automatically & it's only when things go wrong that you appreciate them. For a simple MBR pc_efi install, most or all the hacked osx installers will install pc_efi & darwin for you. Thats fine if you only have one os x partition, but if you want to start imaging & restoring osx whilst you tinker with it you will need to install pc_efi & point grub to it yourself. Thats what wmarsh had advising me to do earlier. His (excellent) reference below is well worth noting in case you need it later. pc_efi_v8 http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=85508&view=findpost&p=606752 The osx86 main page gives some information on multibooting & grub http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page There are many different bootloaders, but I think grub is best unless you have Vista or a GUID partition or the money to pay for it. you will fix it -its not as difficult as it looks. Im having big problems installing tiger: but thats another story.. Think I might need a new topic for it. You are probably confused enough regards Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wmarsh Posted April 3, 2008 Share Posted April 3, 2008 Thanks for the quick reply.I'm most interested in dual booting - writing to the NTFS partition in OS X is not my primary goal.I've been trying to wrap my feeble mind around Grub but don't quite get the varied instructions. Do i install grub on the Tiger partition (the only booting partition now)? I continue to come across vocabulary that is beyond my grasp. What is a 'kernal flag'? In what program do I make changes to 'Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist'. As you can surmise, my knowledge is limited - any explicit help is appreciated. Grub won't install in OS X. There is "Wingrub" -- I've never tried it, and I have no idea how to make pc_efi work with it. Otherwise, grub doesn't install with Windows. Grub installs usually with Linux, although I have also installed it with FreeBSD and Solaris 10. The link Kwaaku gave you is my instructions on how to boot OS X with grub. In my opinion, grub is the best available bootloader, including the ones you pay for. You can use any text editor to edit com.apple.Boot.plist. I use vi. in Terminal type "sudo vi /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist" type "man vi" or google it to learn more Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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