External HD Causing Chameleon Errors & 1 Min delay to appear.

[Xeikon]

Hello: Thanks for your help !

I have a problem that I think can be related to Chameleon.When my External HD (Iomega, USB2, 1TB, 3.5") is ON when booting my Hackintosh (specifications at the end of this post), Chameleon will take like 30 seconds to appear after some slightly blinks black screens, then after I receive 2 or 4 of these errors on the screen:

- EBIOS read error: Device timeout
- Block 0x0 Sectors 0

PLEASE NOTICE that when I turn OFF the external HD, none of theses errors appear and Chameleon appears instantly.
The external HD is never listed on the Chameleon boot list (I don´t really need it to appear)

After choosing the drive to boot up from Chameleon, everything loads and works great then after. Full Mac OS 10.6.5. No problems at all with my Mac.

[Possible Solution?] I have set my BIOS to use AHCI. I red about some EHCI and UHCI fixes in the guide "Using Chameleon 2RC.rtf". I don´t really know if this have something to do with the problem, but it really called my attention since the External HD uses a USB port. All my USB ports work OK. I have a USB keyboard & Mouse and they work OK since boot up or chameleon boot screen. I just ask, just in case it has something to do with the problem or there can be a Chameleon Fix in its configuration.

I want to get rid of the waiting and errors before Chameleon appears when my Ext HD is connected.
I wonder what can be wrong ?

Thank you so much !!!!

Xeikon

My hardware:
GA-X58A-UD3R Rev 2.0
Intel i7 920 - 2.67 GHz
4 GB G.Skill - PCIII 10700 (667 MHz)
Gigabyte Nvidia GeForce GTX 460
HD1: 500 GB Win7 x64
HD2: 250 GB Mac OS 10.6.5
ExtHD: 1TB Iomega

[Slice]

It is a common problem of any Chameleon version/revision.
Booting from CD I can't boot HDD.
Booting from HDD I didn't see CD.
Booting from CD if Chameleon on HDD is broken is not possible.
There is cross influence of boot1h and gBIOSdev between different devices. Must be excluded/corrected.

Here is the test
make
make image
write the image on CD. Only boot, no any system.
Boot from the CD.
You see a list of partitions to boot
hd(2,1) Chameleon_CD....
hd(0,2) Windows
hd(0,3) MacHD
Choose MacHD and press enter....
KP attempting to read rdisk1s2 

[Blackosx]

@Xeikon - I see you're desperate for an answer to your problem, but posting here, in the Theme Park and PM'ing me can be considered rude and impatient. If the answer to a posted question hasn't been answered before and somebody knows the answer then it will come 'in time', but you have to remember that the help given here is purely voluntary and in people's spare time.

Now, personally, I don't have an external USB 1TB HDD to test your problem so I can't give you an answer and as you can see from Slice's kind answer it's a known issue under certain circumstances. There have been many posts in this forum about the EBIOS Read Error so my first port of call will be to look in those.

Here's a few to start you off:
http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php?topic=760.0
http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php?topic=606.0
http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php?topic=329.0
http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php?topic=909.0

If the above doesn't help then please be patient and somebody else more knowledgable may step in and help you.

[Xeikon]

@Blackosx: I am truly sorry. I didn´t mean to be rude... but indeed I was. I didn´t know the best way to get some help. From now on I will wait and take a little time to get an answer.

Thanks for your help.

Xeikon

[Blackosx]

Hi Xeikon - It's no longer an issue, just as long as you understand that multiple postings are frowned upon.

Did any of the links I showed you previously help with your problem?

[Xeikon]

Thanks Blackosx ! Well, when checking the links, I read that there can be some possible issues, but I really don´t think they are the main cause of the problem. This are for example:

- Bad disk or partition: The external disk is the newest disk on my system. It is not partitioned. 1 TB NTFS Partition. Maybe Chameleon doesn´t deal well recognizing large partitions ?? I don´t think so.

- The number of the disk where the Chameleon booting files are. Maybe the number of the disk, for example: "Disk 0", "Disk 1" etc... Does Chameleon have problems with it ?? My disk is not in a RAID.

I do not understand the rest of the 2 last links... It is heavy stuff for my knowledge.

I think that the problem is related to the USB connection or the AHCI set on the BIOS. May be there´s a fix to place on the configuration boot file for Chameleon. For that... I will read a little bit further.

Thanks again.

Xeikon

[Gringo Vermelho]

It is a common problem of any Chameleon version/revision.
Booting from CD I can't boot HDD.
Booting from HDD I didn't see CD.
Booting from CD if Chameleon on HDD is broken is not possible.

1 & 3 works fine for me, always has. All drives attached to Intel ICH10R in AHCI mode.

Maybe it doesn't work for you because your CD/DVD drive is not attached to the same drive controller as your hard drives.

About 2 - if you want to boot from DVDs or CDs that are intended to be bootable on a real Mac (such as a retail install DVD), you must use a Chameleon boot CD. Otherwise, just boot from CD/DVD via your BIOS' boot menu, you don't really need Chameleon for that.

[Slice]

I am not reading the forum as whole yet so I dunno if the problem of mixing hard drives in Chameleon is discussed.
You may not agree with me and not understand what I want to say. Just perform my test. I got KP.

hd(2,1) Chameleon_CD....
hd(0,2) Windows
hd(0,3) MacHD
Choose MacHD and press enter....
KP attempting to read rdisk1s2

[r007]

*ahem* Let me summarize and maybe clear up things a bit (and see if I got everything correctly)...

@Blackosx: I agree with your diagnosis.
@Slice: While what you are pointing out is probably an issue, this does not look like it's the problem here.

Xeikon, when you say "It is not partitioned. 1 TB NTFS Partition.", what do you mean? How did you create the Filesystem? (The point I'm after is whether the USB drive actually _has_ a partition table (e.g. NTFS = diskXs1), or does just start with the NTFS header (NTFS = diskX)).
According to the last link Blackosx posted Chameleon does not deal well with "odd" partition tables, and having none certainly qualifies as "odd".

Your delays are coming from Chameleon -- boot0 in this case -- (fruitlessly) trying to find the boot1 code on all partitions the BIOS offers.
Since your BIOS seems to put the external disk first, it is searched first. Another one of those posts says that there may be some difficulties with big drives (the INT13 stuff) resulting in the read errors, which may also be an issue.

My first advice would be to try and swap the boot order around in your BIOS, such that the internal disk always goes first. This should abbreviate the long search boot0 conducts.

[Xeikon]

Hello R007:

Thanks for your help !!!!  I meant the HD is not partitioned in two or more several partitions. In fact, the HD has only one NTFS partition. I got confused with that. When obviously saying "partition" in any sense would mean "partitioning: The act of dividing one thing in two or more parts", in this case also meant the structure of a HD. Sorry for not explaining myself better.

My MB BIOS has a three priority order list for devices TYPES to boot from. Right now it looks like this:

First: HD
Second: Disable  (can be set to be a CD-DVD or another device type)
Third: Disable (can be set to be a CD-DVD or another device type)

I always leave this list like that for the system to boot up faster.

Then, it also has a priority list for HD´s to boot from. Right now it looks like this:

1: SCSI-1: 250 GB HD   (2 Partitions: (GUID): 1 MAC and 1 FAT32)
2: SCSI-0: 500 GB HD   (3 Partitions: 2 NTFS and 1 FAT32)
3: USB-HDD0: Iomega External HD (1 Partition NTFS - 1 TB)
4: Bootable Add-In Cards

As you can see the External HD is located at the third position on the list.

I don´t know for sure, but I think Chameleon looks first for USB-HDD0, USB-HDD1, USB-HDD2 an on and on... AND  then it looks for HD0, HD1, HD2 and on and on. Correct me if I am wrong please since I am just assuming it.

The problem is that I can not get the External HD out of the "HD boot priority list"

I think, there should be a configuration file where to set Chameleon to look for a specific and exactly limited drives to boot from and not to be looking for any more devices. Does this exists I read that there is a way to set Chameleon to look only ONE drive. But this would not work for me, since I boot Mac from one physical HD and Windows 7 from another different physical HD.

Thanks for your help !!

Xeikon
 

[Slice]

@Slice: While what you are pointing out is probably an issue, this does not look like it's the problem here.

I don't think my report is out of the problem.

I think, there should be a configuration file where to set Chameleon to look for a specific and exactly limited drives to boot from and not to be looking for any more devices. Does this exists  I read that there is a way to set Chameleon to look only ONE drive. But this would not work for me, since I boot Mac from one physical HD and Windows 7 from another different physical HD.

The problem arises when Chameleon see more then one drive. It is a HUGE BUG!

[r007]

The problem arises when Chameleon see more then one drive. It is a HUGE BUG!

From your posts I gathered that the issue you are pointing towards is the kernel panic you are getting.
Xeikon's delays are occuring way before the kernel is even handed control.

And while you may be right that both problems are related to chemeleon's handling of more than one physical drive (come to think of it, I've had issues when trying to boot my internal drive from a chameleon situated on USB), please do berate me for "not understanding what you say" when I could not parse "the mixing of hard drives" (I was thinking along the lines of "Will It Blend" ).

Slice -- I really think you are doing a good job for chameleon, discovering all sorts of bugs and there is some good stuff in your branch, if you'd just be a little more verbose, I think people would understand you better.

As for you, Xeikon, well, not much else you can do really, besides waiting for the bug to be fixed. BTW: What version of Chameleon are you using? (Maybe I overlooked it when skimming the topic again...)

[Xeikon]

WE HIT IT !!!.... I think we have an understanding !!!  Although I believe Chameleon is a wonderful nice product, I think we have a BUG.  I think Chameleon has in its powerful behavior the task to read all possible types of boot devices and all possible kind of operation systems to boot from. This particular mix with USB external and internal SATA HD´s is poison for it. What amaze me, is that I am not the only one with this problem.

ABOUT my Chameleon version, this is what it says on the loader screen:

Darwin / x86 boot v. 5.0.132 - Chameleon v 2.0 - RC4_ PCEFI-10.5_ Asere BLN r
Build date: 2010-02-12  01::05:22
4094 memory

DO I have the right version Should I wait for a fixed version   What do you think should be my action

Thank you all so much for you wonderful help and time spent on this topic.

Xeikon

[Gringo Vermelho]

You should definitely install the latest version of Chameleon.
AsereBLN is no longer in development (your version is almost a year old) and the author has disappeared from the scene. Chameleon 2.0 RC5 can do everything that AsereBLN 1.1.9 could do, and much more.

If your drive is GUID partitioned you can use my guide and files from here:
http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,649.0.html

Note, you don't have to install Chameleon to your EFI partition, you can install it to your system partition as well if you want to, just change the diskxsy commands where necessary. Obviously you should install it to the same place where your present bootloader is installed to so that it will get completely replaced. It is your job to know where that is.
 
zip and attach your com.apple.Boot.plist, it probably has some AsereBLN specific settings that will have to be changed to work with Chameleon 2.0 RC5.

Slice:

I have two hard drives, one with Windows 7 and one with Snow Leopard, I can boot both with my Chameleon boot CD, no crashes or kernel panics. If I plug in an USB flash drive it will list that as well. So for me it works fine.

[Slice]

For you it works fine. So the problem doesn't exist?