MacOSX not visible in Chameleon boot menu anymore

[mirkokg]

Hi, I hope someone can help.
I have dual HDD configuration, one HDD is Windows7 NTFS, the other one is Snow Leopard HFS+(Journaled).
I use Chameleon as a primary boot loader, it is installed on Mac partition.

The system worked perfectly for a few months, but it started behaving strangely yesterday and I did a system Reset.
After that MacOSX was no longer visible in Chameleon boot menu.
Chameleon boot from OSX partition worked and on pressing escape it even started booting Mac, but it would just hang on the Apple logo. Partition was accessible with Macdrive under Windows.

I booted immediately using MacOS X install DVD, and the partition was not visible in disk utility.
I did a reboot, started Windows, and did partition table rebuild using Testdisk.
Testdisk found an error in my partition GPT table and fixed it.
Now my HFS+ partition became visible again in Disk Manager, when booting using install DVD.

But there is no MacOSX icon in Chameleon menu, only Windows7 is visible. It will not start Mac boot when pressing escape anymore.

I can access the partition using MacDrive without a problem.
I did check drive and drive appears to be OK.

Can anyone suggest anything, I'm really confused.
Chameleon is on the same partition as Mac and it boots fine, but can't see MacOSX installation on the same partition.
Partition is Active, bootable, and everything seems to be there, no lost files.

How Chameleon detects MacOSX installations?
Do you have any suggestion how to fix this problem?
How can I make my Snow Leopard installation visible again in the boot menu?

[mirkokg]

This is diskutil list of my configuration:

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~bash-3.2$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *232.9 GB   disk0
   1:               Windows_NTFS                         232.9 GB   disk0s1
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *149.0 GB   disk1
   1:                  Apple_HFS MacOSX                  149.0 GB   disk1s1


I have two more drives connected but I think they are not important, my default boot device is second HDD which contains Snow Leopard with Chameleon.

This is Chameleon boot log:

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boot0: GPT
boot0: HFS+
boot0: booting
boot0: done_

I add MacOSX to Windows7 boot menu using easyBCD, when I choose MacOS from Windows boot menu it shows:

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Try (hd0,0): non-MS: skip
Try (hd0,1): invalid or null
Try (hd0,2): invalid or null
Try (hd0,3): invalid or null
Try (hd1,0): Extended:
Try (hd1,1): invalid or null
Try (hd1,2): invalid or null
Try (hd1,3): invalid or null
Try (hd1,4): NTFS5: No ang0
Try (hd1,5): Extended:
Try (hd1,5): NTFS5: No ang0


[Blackosx]

The system worked perfectly for a few months, but it started behaving strangely yesterday and I did a system Reset.

What was happening for it to behave strangely? and by 'system reset' do you mean forcing the machine off?

After that MacOSX was no longer visible in Chameleon boot menu.
Chameleon boot from OSX partition worked and on pressing escape it even started booting Mac, but it would just hang on the Apple logo.

If your OSX partition was not visible to Chameleon, how did you try to boot it?
You could have tried booting in to single user mode and running fsck.

I booted immediately using MacOS X install DVD, and the partition was not visible in disk utility.

That's strange...

I did a reboot, started Windows, and did partition table rebuild using Testdisk.
Testdisk found an error in my partition GPT table and fixed it.

I haven't ever tried that so I can't comment on how accurate that would be.

Now my HFS+ partition became visible again in Disk Manager, when booting using install DVD.

The Mac OS X install DVD?
In that case, can you run Terminal from the menu and fun fsck against your OSX installation?

But there is no MacOSX icon in Chameleon menu, only Windows7 is visible. It will not start Mac boot when pressing escape anymore.

Your OSX install is damaged somehow.

How Chameleon detects MacOSX installations?

There is a post somewhere in this forum on what it looks for, but I can't remember now.

Code: [Select]

/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *149.0 GB   disk1
   1:                  Apple_HFS MacOSX                  149.0 GB   disk1s1


Looks wrong.. Where's the EFI partition that gets automatically added when creating a GPT?

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boot0: GPT
boot0: HFS+
boot0: booting
boot0: done_


It's not loading boot1h.... have you tried re-installing it?

I add MacOSX to Windows7 boot menu using easyBCD, when I choose MacOS from Windows boot menu it shows:

I am not sure if that changes anything on your OS X disk, but you shouldn't need to use it.

[mirkokg]

What was happening for it to behave strangely? and by 'system reset' do you mean forcing the machine off?

Programs started crashing so I pressed reset button on the computer case.

If your OSX partition was not visible to Chameleon, how did you try to boot it?
You could have tried booting in to single user mode and running fsck.

I don't know what escape button does in Chameleon but after pressing escape it started booting Mac OSX evendo it was not visible in the menu. I couldn't input boot options to start it in single mode.

That's strange...

Probably partition table was demaged

The Mac OS X install DVD?
In that case, can you run Terminal from the menu and fun fsck against your OSX installation?

Yes Mac OS X install DVD. I can run commands from Terminal on the install dvd against OSX installation.

Looks wrong.. Where's the EFI partition that gets automatically added when creating a GPT?

I don't remember if I had EFI partition before

It's not loading boot1h.... have you tried re-installing it?

I tried:

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dd if=boot1h of=/dev/rdisk1s1

but that didn't help

I am not sure if that changes anything on your OS X disk, but you shouldn't need to use it.

I tried just to check if there is something wrong with my bootloader, but its working the same, it also uses Chameleon, and behaves the same.

[mirkokg]

How can I check if boot1h is there?

Actually I found a way to check, there is an option open disk in Hex Workshop, I opened my OS X partition and first two sectors match boot1h perfectly.

Do you have any other ideas?

[Blackosx]

Not sure from memory, but you can always try re-installing it.
If you can boot in to Terminal from the OSX Install DVD then try the following.

Copy the attached boot1h to the root of a USB memory stick, then in terminal, cd to the root of the memory stick and use the following command.

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dd if=boot1h of=dev/rdisk1s1
Note: s1 is normally the EFI partition, but in your case it's not.. So you might need to somehow sort your GUID disk first.

[mirkokg]

Yes, I did

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dd if=boot1h of=/dev/rdisk1s1

it didn't help. How big should EFI partition be?

Should it contain any files?

[Blackosx]

Sorry for my previous answer, I didn't see your longer reply above 

How big should EFI partition be?
Should it contain any files?

200MB and it will be an empty FAT32 partition where we can use it for our Chameleon install if preferred.
New Macs from Apple though come with a firmware.scap file in there.

[mirkokg]

Is that partition necessary?

Maybe testdisk din't recognize that partition when I was restoring partition table, but I'm not sure if I had it when everything worked

I did check disk and it said everything seems to be OK.

I tried everything, I'm backing up my data right now, I'll do a reinstall if there is nothing else I can do

[Blackosx]

Go ahead and back everything up but don't erase anything just yet...  as maybe you can still boot your OSX install some other way.

How about trying to boot it from a Chameleon BootCD (EmpireEFI or iBoot spring to mind) or a bootable USB stick? or even trying to boot your install from a hacked distro boot CD (iPC, iDeneb, iAtkos)? I wouldn't normally recommend them here as it's favourable to buy the genuine Apple DVD and use a retail install but in this case I am just thinking of options for you try the Chameleon bootloader from a working source to boot your install. From there you can then either try to fix your system or backup your data files. It's worth a try at least before having to resort to wiping your setup.

Or unless anybody else has some suggestions?

[mirkokg]

I reinstalled, now I have EFI partition. That was definitely a problem.
I couldn't boot from bootable cd/flash or any other way, I tried everything.

Thank you for your help!