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Author Topic: [SOLVED] Snow L. installed OK, can't boot from HDD, booting from USB disk OK  (Read 2808 times)

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mtest

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Hi all,
I have a small issue with my fresh SL 10.6.3 installation on a Samsung N130.  :lol no:

The installation goes very smoothly, no problem at all, using iATKOS S3 v2 on an external USB drive (had to restore the ISO to the drive and then make the drive bootable using Netbook Maker 0.8.4rc1).

My only problem is that I cannot boot my OSX directly from the bootloader's menu (which is Chameleon if I understand correclty).

When I choose my Mac partition in the bootloader, I can briefly see the apple on a grey background and then automatically the computer goes back to the BIOS Post boot sequence.  :'(

The -v -f -x options does not change anything to the problem. Using -v I can't see any problem, everything goes way to fast.

The only thing I can say is that the reboot seems to happen at the moment where usually there is a switch between the text mode and the video mode.

The weird thing is that if I boot on the USB drive, then the same OSX partition is showing in the bootloader's menu as well. From there the computer can boots normally and I can enjoy my Snow L installation.  :o

I'm quite new to this. I first thought it was a bootloader configuration problem but with the verbose logging I can see that before rebooting the system is loading some /System/Library/Extensions files. Thid probably means that it's not a pure bootloader issue.

When I boot my HDD install from the bootloader physically installed on the USB drive, does Chameleon load the /Extra directory from that USB drive or from the root partition ?

If this is the case, is it safe for me to simply replace the /Extra directory on my HD with the one on the USB drive ?

Appreciate your help.

Thank you very much. wink.gif

Edit: My issue is very similar to http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,1473.0.html
« Last Edit: July 14, 2010, 10:24:49 AM by mtest »

mtest

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Issue fixed !

I've found several reports from people having a similar problem and one of them mentioned that replacing the kernel could be the solution.

I looked on my USB drive that can boot my HD OSX install and found several kernel files on it, one of them being named 'mach_kernel.atom'.

I gave a try and copied this patched kernel to my OSX partition on the HD, reboot and voilĂ  !!!

The problem then is that my OSX booted but with a wrong screen resolution, no keyboard, no touchpad, nothing ! I just ran Netbook Installer again and on the next reboot everything was back in order (except sound, but this I will try to fix it later).

I'm still wondering what's the benefit of the use of iATKOS in my story...

So the thing to remember is that when you boot from a bootloader installed on a different drive obviously (at least with Chameleon) the bootloader takes the kernel from the external drive.

Anyway, now I'm happy with my Samsung N130 running Snow Leo 10.6.3  ;) , which is much better than this crappy Windows Seven Starter edition that comes by default with it.