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Author Topic: Bootup Options ... how?  (Read 14055 times)

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Voltaire

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Bootup Options ... how?
« on: May 15, 2011, 05:01:08 PM »
Hi folks, following configuration here: MSI Wind U100 1616XP with new 250 GB-HD partitioned as follows: (a) 40 GB NTFS for WinXP, (b) 150 GB NTFS Data (intended to use for both, Mac&Win), (c) 40 GB HFS+ (extended journaled) for Mac; HD-partition-type is MBR, mode is AHCI (with installed and working AHCI-drivers for WinXP). First installed WinXP on partition (a), then installed SnowyWind 10.6.3 on Partition (c) from external DVD-Drive on USB ... So far - so OK ...

With SnowyWind was installed Chameleon (Darwin/x86 boot v5.0.132 - Chameleon v2.0-RC4 r / Build date: 2009-12-16 14:28:38) that shows following behaviour: booting up, showing for some parts of a second something like "... boot ..." and "... done ..." and then comes into the "Press any Key to enter Startup Options" apple screen. When pressing any key, it comes into the partition-choose-window where I can choose any of the three partitions by arrow-keys, then press enter ... and start up. BTW: left is WinXP, middle (preselected) Data, right is MacOS ... So far - again so OK ...

But:

At install time, partition (b) that is a pure data partition without OS was choosen to start up from by default (I did not change anything) - so when not touching any key, it does not come to the partition-choose-window, but takes what was preselected - and as it is an NTFS-partition without OS, you see "NTLDR is missing - Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart" ... :/

This is not a big issue - I'll keep that - as it takes only seconds to restart again, and that's even better that way than wait for starting up the whole OS if it was the wrong one - and restart again.

Now to some questions:
a) why was the big data-partition (still empty for the moment) choosen as default-startup-partition? SnowyWind was installed to third partition, not to second.
b) how to change default-startup-partition?
where is that info residing? if it is residing somewhere inside c-partition: what happens if I would start up windows and delete the c-partition totally - or if I would just reformat c-partition when starting again from external SnowyWind-DVD with HD-tool, but without reinstalling OS yet? do I run into a no-startup-problem-issue to even not be able to startup windows?

But here is the main question:
What really bothers me: now I need to startup mac-os-x with options (with -x or -v etc.) ... how to do that - as on the first screen I only can press any key to come to the partition-selector-window - and there I only have the possibility to use the arrow keys to choose the designated startup partition and then enter to start ... any other key does not seem to have any function. How to "startup with options"?

Thanks for helpful answers ...

...

OK - in the meantime: found out down-arrow opens some menu-items - but they are all not useful so far:
- memory-info/video-info/help: open a window with some text written in nearly white letters on white background - absolutely unreadable and unusable ...
- booting verbose does not help - I need to boot without kexts ... how?
« Last Edit: May 15, 2011, 08:34:21 PM by Voltaire »

Gringo Vermelho

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Re: Bootup Options ... how?
« Reply #1 on: May 16, 2011, 07:50:21 PM »
Please take some time to read the documentation.

10.9.5 - ASUS P8Z77-V Pro - i5 3570K - GTX 660 - Chameleon 2.3 svn-r2xxx
How to...
Install Chameleon: http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,649
Make your own Chameleon boot CD: http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,484.msg2131.html#msg2131

Voltaire

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Re: Bootup Options ... how?
« Reply #2 on: May 17, 2011, 02:23:08 AM »
SORRY, BUT WHY DON'T YOU WRITE TO PRESS [TAB] AT VOLUME-SELECTION IN THE BEGINNING OF YOUR INSTRUCTION MANUAL???  >:( >:( >:(

Your whole instructions is a joke when you first have to try pressing every key on the keyboard to see if anything could happen or not!!! And then have to find out yourself: press left/right arrow to select volume, press down-arrow for main given bootup options - AND PRESS [TAB] FOR THE "verbose volume selection" - and there boot-prompt will only appear for Darwin/x86-volumes - and that you have to press arrow-up/down to select such a volume ... ALL WHAT YOU WRITE IN YOUR MANUAL IS USELESS WITHOUT KNOWING THAT!!!

WHY DON'T YOU WRITE THAT IN YOUR MANUAL??? >:( >:( >:( ... That's NOT a joke!!!

Gringo Vermelho

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Re: Bootup Options ... how?
« Reply #3 on: May 17, 2011, 03:45:00 AM »
If you did not instinctively go for the arrow keys when presented with a list of available boot devices, the "quality" of the Chameleon documentation will be the least of your problems.

Feel free to contribute improvements to the existing documentation.
« Last Edit: May 17, 2011, 04:11:57 AM by Gringo Vermelho »
10.9.5 - ASUS P8Z77-V Pro - i5 3570K - GTX 660 - Chameleon 2.3 svn-r2xxx
How to...
Install Chameleon: http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,649
Make your own Chameleon boot CD: http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,484.msg2131.html#msg2131

Voltaire

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Re: Bootup Options ... how?
« Reply #4 on: May 17, 2011, 04:11:43 AM »
Can you please take the following away (at "BootHelp.txt) as this is no longer true (with the "apple-page"). This was true before introducing the "apple-page":

The boot: prompt waits for you to type advanced startup options. If you don't type anything, the computer continues starting up normally.

I'll try to describe in short words what happens at boot time - please replace above with:

Boot process: first you will see an "apple-page". If you don't press any key at that moment, the preselected volume will continue booting and starting up. You can presss any key to come to the "volume chooser" where you can press left/right arrow to choose the volume to boot from, the down arrow (at a selected volume) for some given boot options, or [TAB] to go to the boot prompt where you can again choose boot volume (by up/down arrows) and manually enter advanced startup options.

That's it for the moment. Without that info you don't know what to do and really wonder where the hell you can enter advanced options - as there is no prompt without pressing [tab]!!!

Gringo Vermelho

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Re: Bootup Options ... how?
« Reply #5 on: May 17, 2011, 04:15:38 AM »
There's no need to press the TAB key, the prompt appears at the GUI as soon as you start typing.

I guess you must have missed this:
Docs are forthcoming for the final release. Please keep in mind, what your using what you've downloaded isn't complete. It has bugs, we know this. It has missing docs, we know this... it has been released so that people can get their hands on it and test it out... If you're having issues with an install ask around on the forum or the irc channels for ideas or a workaround, if not maybe you might want to wait until the final release which will include docs =)

Chameleon has no boot option that lets you "boot without kexts", if a specific kernel extension is giving you trouble you must delete it manually.

Chameleon has no official installer and no "Apple Page". The method (SnowyWind) you have used has set up Chameleon in a specific way, determined by the author of that install method.
What little documentation that we have assumes that you have installed Chameleon manually and configured it yourself. We cannot offer documentation for configurations or installations that were put together by a third party.
« Last Edit: May 17, 2011, 04:24:45 AM by Gringo Vermelho »
10.9.5 - ASUS P8Z77-V Pro - i5 3570K - GTX 660 - Chameleon 2.3 svn-r2xxx
How to...
Install Chameleon: http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,649
Make your own Chameleon boot CD: http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,484.msg2131.html#msg2131

Voltaire

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Re: Bootup Options ... how?
« Reply #6 on: May 17, 2011, 04:39:43 AM »
If you did not instinctively go for the arrow keys when presented with a list of available boot devices, the "quality" of the Chameleon documentation will be the least of your problems.
Please don't tell that! Instintively using arrow-keys is not the problem - but you're stuck there - you don't have the boot prompt there! And without boot-prompt, you cannot use any advanced options.

Chameleon has no boot option that lets you "boot without kexts", if a specific kernel extension is giving you trouble you must delete it manually.
Sorry, "boot without kexts" means "-x" (safe mode) - then the extentions are not loaded - what is in a way "boot without kexts" ...
Chameleon has no official installer and no "Apple Page". The method (SnowyWind) you have used has set up Chameleon in a specific way, determined by the author of that install method.
Obviously ... but didn't I mention what I had read in the "volume choose screen" (that's an "apple style graphic", not only text; maybe you don't know how that is looking like).

What little documentation that we have assumes that you have installed Chameleon manually and configured it yourself. We cannot offer documentation for configurations or installations that were put together by a third party.
The version I got might not be the same as the "download-version"; it's obviously a special one that the guy who compiled the "SnowyWindOSX.iso" (with Mac OS X v10.6.2) has put on the DVD/.iso as mentioned above. But he declares it as "Chameleon (Darwin/x86 boot v5.0.132 - Chameleon v2.0-RC4 r / Build date: 2009-12-16 14:28:38)" If that piece of (boot-)software is declared that way I have to assume that it is what it is declared as ...

There's no need to press the TAB key, the prompt appears at the GUI as soon as you start typing.
Sorry, no - that's not the case here! I tried EVERY KEY! The only keys that have any function are mentioned: left/right-arrow (to choose volume), down-arrow (for given options) and TAB (for boot promt). Any other key just does nothing at all!!! Just nothing!

Gringo Vermelho

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Re: Bootup Options ... how?
« Reply #7 on: May 17, 2011, 04:50:08 AM »
All Chameleon versions that support the use of a theme will open a prompt at the bottom of the screen as soon as you start typing. This is the truth. It is not something I invented right now just to annoy you.

If the prompt does not appear when you start typing, then either this functionality has been deliberately removed by the author of "SnowyWind", or your default partition is not OS X.

memory-info/video-info/help: open a window with some text written in nearly white letters on white background - absolutely unreadable and unusable
That happens because the author of "SnowyWind" has not configured the theme correctly. Font color is fully customizable.
I repeat: We cannot support, document, or guarantee the functionality of pre-rolled installers provided by a third party here on this forum.
« Last Edit: May 17, 2011, 05:06:24 AM by Gringo Vermelho »
10.9.5 - ASUS P8Z77-V Pro - i5 3570K - GTX 660 - Chameleon 2.3 svn-r2xxx
How to...
Install Chameleon: http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,649
Make your own Chameleon boot CD: http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,484.msg2131.html#msg2131

Voltaire

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Re: Bootup Options ... how?
« Reply #8 on: May 17, 2011, 05:16:26 AM »
All Chameleon versions that support the use of a theme will open a prompt at the bottom of the screen as soon as you start typing. This is the truth. It is not something I invented right now just to annoy you.
Sorry, I don't wanna bother you - but that's not the case here - or is that not chameleon what I have here?

If the prompt does not appear when you start typing, then either this functionality has been deliberately removed by the author of "SnowyWind", or your default partition is not OS X.
As written in my FIRST posting: no! default volume is an empty data-volume without OS.

BUT IF THIS IS THE CASE ... you'll have mandatorily to adapt the manual. I don't know what the guy from snowywind did. Just try it: prepare a HD with three partitions, first one empty or windows, second one empty NTFS, and third one with MacOS (Hackintosh). Default is second volume - behaving as described.

This is one of the reasons why we cannot support, document, or guarantee the functionality of pre-rolled installers provided by a third party.
Sure - but if that is the case what I just described before, you'll HAVE to mention it!

memory-info/video-info/help: open a window with some text written in nearly white letters on white background - absolutely unreadable and unusable
That happens because the author of "SnowyWind" has not configured the theme correctly. Font color is fully customizable.
Might be ... but it could also be that he uses a font that looks nice at a screen of 1024x768 - and totally squashed at 1024x600 ... I don't know ...

But something else what I also asked in my very first posting: WHERE DOES THE CONFIGURATION FILE FOR CHAMELEON RESIDE? I cannot understand why this is not clearly mentioned in the manual! Just write there in what directory that file resides; and also write what you have to do after formatting the volume it resides on! I tried it out: I emptied and reformatted my third volume (MacOS) - and the Wind was no longer able to boot into winows. Please mention that somewhere else in the manual!!!

Gringo Vermelho

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Re: Bootup Options ... how?
« Reply #9 on: May 17, 2011, 05:48:32 AM »
The configuration file is com.apple.Boot.plist and its location depends on where Chameleon is installed.

Usually it is located in /Extra, along with smbios.plist, extra folder with kernel extensions, theme folder and ACPI table overrides. Some third party installers might opt to use the com.apple.Boot.plist located in /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration, which is not recommended and as far as I'm concerned, unsupported here.

This is where you permanently set or override the default partition to boot from, hide partitions, add kernel flags etc. This is explained in the docs. Note that since you have opted to use a two years old version of Chameleon, some configuration settings that you will want to use might not be available. For instance, in order to hide your non-bootable partitions from the GUI you will need to upgrade to Chameleon 2.0 RC5.

All Chameleon versions that support the use of a theme will open a prompt at the bottom of the screen as soon as you start typing. This is the truth. It is not something I invented right now just to annoy you.
Sorry, I don't wanna bother you - but that's not the case here - or is that not chameleon what I have here?

I don't know how I can make this any clearer so I'll just repeat what I've already said:
If the command prompt does not appear at the bottom of the screen when you press a key, it is because of something the author of "SnowyWind" has done to Chameleon. I can't help you with that, you are going to have to talk to him about it.
you'll have mandatorily to adapt the manual.
Sure - but if that is the case what I just described before, you'll HAVE to mention it!
I don't HAVE to do anything. I am here to help, but unless you wish to be banned from this forum, please show some respect.
« Last Edit: May 17, 2011, 08:41:39 PM by Gringo Vermelho »
10.9.5 - ASUS P8Z77-V Pro - i5 3570K - GTX 660 - Chameleon 2.3 svn-r2xxx
How to...
Install Chameleon: http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,649
Make your own Chameleon boot CD: http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,484.msg2131.html#msg2131

Voltaire

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Re: Bootup Options ... how?
« Reply #10 on: May 18, 2011, 12:05:18 PM »
The configuration file is com.apple.Boot.plist and its location depends on where Chameleon is installed.
Nice, but why do you write in the manual "Suppose that your installation is on ..."? ... As soon as the user does not have a standard installation, he might be confused. I miss some basic descriptions, what is what and what the possibilities are - just to first have an overview before noticing: this does not apply here - and then???

Usually it is located in /Extra, along with smbios.plist, extra folder with kernel extensions, theme folder and ACPI table overrides. Some third party installers might opt to use the com.apple.Boot.plist located in /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration, which is not recommended and as far as I'm concerned, unsupported here.
Sorry, but why is this not mentioned as detailed in the manual?

This is where you permanently set or override the default partition to boot from, hide partitions, add kernel flags etc. This is explained in the docs. Note that since you have opted to use a two years old version of Chameleon, some configuration settings that you will want to use might not be available. For instance, in order to hide your non-bootable partitions from the GUI you will need to upgrade to Chameleon 2.0 RC5.
Thanks for the info - I'll have a look at the installed version.

All Chameleon versions that support the use of a theme will open a prompt at the bottom of the screen as soon as you start typing. This is the truth. It is not something I invented right now just to annoy you.
Sorry, I don't wanna bother you - but that's not the case here - or is that not chameleon what I have here?
I don't know how I can make this any clearer so I'll just repeat what I've already said: If the command prompt does not appear at the bottom of the screen when you press a key, it is because of something the author of "SnowyWind" has done to Chameleon. I can't help you with that, you are going to have to talk to him about it.
you'll have mandatorily to adapt the manual.
Sure - but if that is the case what I just described before, you'll HAVE to mention it!
I don't HAVE to do anything. I am here to help, but unless you wish to be banned from this forum, please show some respect.

Sorry, but before, you were mentioning that the behaviour shown here could be caused by the fact that the default boot volume IS NOT the Mac-OS-X-startup-volume. If that is the case, that behaviour would not be caused by the writer of snowywind's modifications, but just by the simple fact that default volume is not mac-bootable. If THAT would be the case, your manual would not cover all the configurations you offer - and you really should think of covering all options in your manual. But I don't wanna be responsible if chameleon gets a bad reputiation in the sense of: unhandable as the manual is as incomplete that you are running into stuck situations. That was meant with "mandatorily" - not more and not less! And sure, if that is a "snowywind-only-speciality", that would not be the case.

Btw concerning respect(fulness) here: when someone describes a problem here quite in detail, it is your turn to see that the manual is not applicable as there is something described that is not covered by the manual. Just telling to consult the manual in a situation that it is obviously not solvable with the manual alone (that was all described in the first posting) is quite respectless.

Gringo Vermelho

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Re: Bootup Options ... how?
« Reply #11 on: May 20, 2011, 05:11:51 AM »
Dude, the manual is applicable because it IS covered in the manual. The docs tell you exactly how to set the default boot partition. I believe that's the main issue you're describing in your first post. Right?

The docs posted by RockSteady also state, highlighted in red, in which version that option was added.

As for your other issue, I'll take a wild guess that the reason why you can't see the command prompt at the bottom of the Chameleon GUI is because the font color used for the command prompt is the same as the background color. That's the only thing I can think of. As far as I know there is no way to disable the command prompt, except maybe if you modify the source code. And doing that would be at least as stupid as not setting the font color to something else than white when you're using a theme with a white background.

Whatever the case may be, the only person to blame for it is the author of SnowyWind, it has nothing to do with Chameleon itself or its (lack of) documentation. I don't think we should have to add to the docs that users should avoid setting the font and the theme background to the same color.
what happens if I would start up windows and delete the c-partition totally - or if I would just reformat c-partition when starting again from external SnowyWind-DVD with HD-tool, but without reinstalling OS yet? do I run into a no-startup-problem-issue to even not be able to startup windows?
I have no freaking idea. I don't know anything about HD-tool or the SnowyWind DVD. This forum is the wrong place to ask this type of question, we cannot support third party OS X install DVDs, tools and utilities here.
why do you write in the manual "Suppose that your installation is on ..."? ... As soon as the user does not have a standard installation, he might be confused.
We cannot possibly cover all imaginable, right or wrong ways to install Chameleon in the documentation. As I said earlier, the documentation assumes that the user has performed a manual installation of Chameleon - as described in the docs. We cannot provide documentation for setups or configurations put together by a third party, and we cannot take into account all possible mistakes that could be made by a third party.

That said, it is well known that the documentation has its flaws. You are welcome to contribute and improve it as you see fit - that's how things work around here. If you do a nice writeup and the other moderators agree, I'll have it stickied along with the rest of the documentation.
« Last Edit: May 20, 2011, 05:51:21 AM by Gringo Vermelho »
10.9.5 - ASUS P8Z77-V Pro - i5 3570K - GTX 660 - Chameleon 2.3 svn-r2xxx
How to...
Install Chameleon: http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,649
Make your own Chameleon boot CD: http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,484.msg2131.html#msg2131

Blackosx

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Re: Bootup Options ... how?
« Reply #12 on: May 20, 2011, 08:29:32 AM »
That said, it is well known that the documentation has its flaws. You are welcome to contribute and improve it as you see fit - that's how things work around here. If you do a nice writeup and the other moderators agree, I'll have it stickied along with the rest of the documentation.
Yep.. I'll second that.

We do need more details docs here. I'd previously thought of creating a PDF but as Chameleons' options keep growing, bugfixes worked on and it's codebase appended to for newer versions on OS X etc. I believe the best option would be to have a wiki which will allow many devs, users and contributors to keep it up to date. Maybe Zef can add a package to his server?

I've used Chameleon for a while now and I don't understand every option available, though that's mostly down to not having to use them.  :P

Voltaire. Thanks for posting your issues here. I understand your frustrations, but Gringo is right in saying that a lot of your problems look like they've been caused by SnowyWind (whatever that is), and hasn't helped by the lack of extended documentation here, though BTW, did SnowyWind have a manual?  However, as Gringo has mentioned, if you do want to contribute to the docs in any way here then please do. All of us here help out when we can in our spare time and unfortunately for me at least, I haven't had much of it lately.
10.10.5 / 10.11 GM1 | Asus Maximum IV Gene-Z | i7-2600 3.40GHz | 4GB | Radeon 5770 1GB

Voltaire

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Re: Bootup Options ... how?
« Reply #13 on: May 20, 2011, 03:27:48 PM »
Dude, the manual is applicable because it IS covered in the manual. The docs tell you exactly how to set the default boot partition. I believe that's the main issue you're describing in your first post. Right?
I don't agree - as I did not find anything about the switching by TAB between GUI-view and Text-view in the manual; as mentioned in the small proposition for manual amendment:

Boot process: first you will see a GUI with an "apple-page". If you don't press any key at that moment, the preselected volume will continue booting and starting up. You can presss any key to come to the "volume chooser" where you can press left/right arrow to choose the volume to boot from, the down arrow (at a selected volume) for some given boot options, or [TAB] to switch to the boot prompt where you can again choose boot volume (by up/down arrows) and manually enter advanced startup options. [TAB] again switches back to the GUI.

That's what SnowyWind had installed - and that is just an older version of chameleon; but that IS chameleon.

Btw: SnowyWindOSX is a ready-to-go-install-DVD with Mac OS X 10.6.2 directly adapted for MSI WIND U100 - just google for SnowyWindOSX.iso. (The real problems appear when trying to update to 10.6.7 ...)

Next (new) question from my side: what will happen if I install latest version of chameleon "over" that one - and I am asking about configuration files. Will the new installation overwrite the old preferences-file - or leave it as it was, and could that run into problems?

The docs posted by RockSteady also state, highlighted in red, in which version that option was added.
Yes - but am I blind or didn't I read there something about the GUI-/Text-mode?

As for your other issue, I'll take a wild guess that the reason why you can't see the command prompt at the bottom of the Chameleon GUI is because the font color used for the command prompt is the same as the background color. That's the only thing I can think of.
And that is the solution to it. It is not white on white, but white on light grey, and very small in the left corner at the bottom of the screen - and it is (obviously!) only appearing when you have choosen a mac-bootable volume, not with a pc-bootable volume!

Pressing TAB always works - but caution: the selection in the GUI-mode might be different than that one in the textmode. So if you select a mac-bootable volume in the GUI-mode and switch to text-mode, still the text-mode-volume-selector still stands on the default volume - but if you don't press any up/down arrow, the volume that was selected in GUI-mode will be booted. As soon as you press up/down arrorws, GUI-selection will be overrided.

I want to check all that with latest version, but first be sure that install over this version does not caus any problems - and whether I have to be careful about anything.

As far as I know there is no way to disable the command prompt, except maybe if you modify the source code. And doing that would be at least as stupid as not setting the font color to something else than white when you're using a theme with a white background.
That would be "special hacks" - that's another topic that goes beyond "normal use". So far, I did not change anything in the configuration/preference file - and I want to keep that as long as it makes sense (including that default volume is unbootable; that does not bother me for the moment).

Whatever the case may be, the only person to blame for it is the author of SnowyWind, it has nothing to do with Chameleon itself or its (lack of) documentation. I don't think we should have to add to the docs that users should avoid setting the font and the theme background to the same color.
As said: I want to update to latest version of chameleon - and the I can see hot that behaves - and if it behaves more or less as the version the guy from snowywind had installed.

what happens if I would start up windows and delete the c-partition totally - or if I would just reformat c-partition when starting again from external SnowyWind-DVD with HD-tool, but without reinstalling OS yet? do I run into a no-startup-problem-issue to even not be able to startup windows?
I have no freaking idea. I don't know anything about HD-tool or the SnowyWind DVD. This forum is the wrong place to ask this type of question, we cannot support third party OS X install DVDs, tools and utilities here.
Sorry, again: SnowyWind installs a (obviously older) version of chameleon as boot-manager - and that's the stuff here; not more and not less.

btw: I did erase the third partition (the entire mac partion) - and as expected, even not booting into Windows is possible as chameleon does lack of some information that is missing (and that resided on the mac volume).

Another source of confusion will be: what happens when I replace the second (unbootable) PC data partiotion with a smaller one and a second mac-(bootable) partition. where does chameleon epect to have residing it's configuration/preferences files - stil on the "third" partition (that will be mac formatted, but empty), or on the same partition as before (that is now no more third, but fourth partition)?

why do you write in the manual "Suppose that your installation is on ..."? ... As soon as the user does not have a standard installation, he might be confused.
We cannot possibly cover all imaginable, right or wrong ways to install Chameleon in the documentation. As I said earlier, the documentation assumes that the user has performed a manual installation of Chameleon - as described in the docs. We cannot provide documentation for setups or configurations put together by a third party, and we cannot take into account all possible mistakes that could be made by a third party.
And here comes the next problem: what happens when the user does not "intstall chameleon manually from scratch". Here I have the case that some old version was installed "automatically". When I update to the latest version: do I then have the same configuration as someone who has "manually installed"? I think explicitely to the switchability between GUI and text mode that it seems to me that you don't know that.

That said, it is well known that the documentation has its flaws. You are welcome to contribute and improve it as you see fit - that's how things work around here. If you do a nice writeup and the other moderators agree, I'll have it stickied along with the rest of the documentation.
I'll do that - but I first wanna install the latest version; does not make sense to write manual instructions for older versions.

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That said, it is well known that the documentation has its flaws. You are welcome to contribute and improve it as you see fit - that's how things work around here. If you do a nice writeup and the other moderators agree, I'll have it stickied along with the rest of the documentation.
Yep.. I'll second that.
I'll do that - but need to first install latest version.

We do need more details docs here. I'd previously thought of creating a PDF but as Chameleons' options keep growing, bugfixes worked on and it's codebase appended to for newer versions on OS X etc. I believe the best option would be to have a wiki which will allow many devs, users and contributors to keep it up to date. Maybe Zef can add a package to his server?
I do not consider the form of the instruction file as problem - but that there are several details not mentioned - and if you don't know, you don't come so far that your manual seems to be appropriate; as happened here ... As for me, I would say that the manual needs some more intro-parts that the user can orientate himself.

I've used Chameleon for a while now and I don't understand every option available, though that's mostly down to not having to use them.  :P
sure, but that's not the problem. important is that you are not stuck before you get any orientation what and how ...

Voltaire. Thanks for posting your issues here. I understand your frustrations, but Gringo is right in saying that a lot of your problems look like they've been caused by SnowyWind (whatever that is), and hasn't helped by the lack of extended documentation here, though BTW, did SnowyWind have a manual?
I did not find a special manual there - I am just told that chameleon will be installed - and to look at "chameleon support" for that; and that's here ...

However, as Gringo has mentioned, if you do want to contribute to the docs in any way here then please do. All of us here help out when we can in our spare time and unfortunately for me at least, I haven't had much of it lately.
I'll do ... and I'll have a detailed eye on the "arrow behaviour" as some behaviour might be as expected to specialists, but not to the "less-hacking-approved" users.
« Last Edit: May 20, 2011, 03:34:09 PM by Voltaire »

Gringo Vermelho

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Re: Bootup Options ... how?
« Reply #14 on: May 20, 2011, 05:42:56 PM »
I did not find anything about the switching by TAB between GUI-view and Text-view in the manual
Alright, that's enough with that already! The only reason why you needed that in the first place is because the idiot who configured "SnowyWind" has set a font color that is almost identical to the background so that you can't see the command prompt! I didn't know you could press TAB either to switch to text mode because I have never had to do that. I can see what I'm typing, so I just start typing while at the GUI.

I highly recommend that you get rid of SnowyWind and use a retail OS X install DVD + a bootable flash drive with Chameleon on it. Once you're done installing, install Chameleon manually to your hard drive so that you know exactly what goes where.

Chameleon looks for its configuration files in /Extra, first on the same partition that it is installed to, then on the HFS volume it is booting. I'm 98% sure that Chameleon will not even attempt to read an /Extra folder on an NTFS volume (what would be the point - you can't install OS X on an NTFS volume). So, if you have deleted your OS X partition, I don't think there are any Chameleon configuration files left on your hard drive at this point. The theme is probably embedded.

Chameleon can't actually boot Windows on its own - it starts the existing Windows bootloader, which you must preserve, otherwise you will not be able to boot Windows. Additionally, the Windows partition (or, if you have it, the "System Reserved" partition) must remain marked "active".
All of this has become possible on single hard drive systems in a convenient way only recently, due to a modified version of fdisk (aka fdisk440) and using boot0hfs instead of boot0 when installing Chameleon.

I don't know how the author of SnowyWind has set up your old version of Chameleon to deal with these things; another problem here is that there are various ways:
If you have already seen a manual installation guide, you might have noticed that Chameleon itself (meaning: not counting configuration files that the user must add manually) only consists of three files. boot0 is installed to the MBR, boot is copied to the root of the partition where Chameleon is installed and boot1h is installed into the hard drive's bootsector. "boot" you can see and therefore delete, but the other two files are not accessible from the file system and can only be deleted by rewriting the MBR and/or installing another bootloader.
However, depending on your partition layout and file systems used you might want to use other versions of some of these three files and this is where it gets complicated.

My knowledge in this area is very limited because I have always used a separate hard drive for each OS and performed a standard installation of Chameleon.
Therefore I will not be able to help you with the specifics. And even if I was, it is still impossible to say from here exactly how the SnowyWind installer has installed Chameleon to your hard drive, let alone which of those three files were used.

I'm having trouble understanding your descriptions of your partition layout, another problem is that you don't know yourself where or how Chameleon was installed - because you have used a third-party installer that did all the work for you. Again, there is no way for me to determine from here how and where SnowyWind has installed Chameleon to your hard drive, it is your job to know that and provide that information when asking for help here.

Hopefully it is clear to you now why we can't support SnowyWind here, even if it is using Chameleon.

If I were you I would start over, using a third party formatting tool (ie not the one on the Windows install DVD) and the partition layout + boot0hfs as suggested by Azimutz in reply #13 here: http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,1629.msg8455.html#msg8455
« Last Edit: May 20, 2011, 07:58:20 PM by Gringo Vermelho »
10.9.5 - ASUS P8Z77-V Pro - i5 3570K - GTX 660 - Chameleon 2.3 svn-r2xxx
How to...
Install Chameleon: http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,649
Make your own Chameleon boot CD: http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,484.msg2131.html#msg2131