Chameleon hangs / fails to boot with external USB drive connected to my Hackinto

[LJSeinfeld]

Installed version is 2.0-r431.

If I have my timemachine drive connected (via USB in this example) my computer won't boot.  If I unplug the drive (even in mid-boot) things go OK from there.

Not sure if this is a chameleon issue, but I never had this problem before installing chameleon (which otherwise rocks).

Running 10.5.7 on a asus p5w dh dlx mobo, sata boot drive.  USB timemachine drive connected via USB front panel connector.

Any ideas?  I did a quick search and didn't come up with anything.

Thanks,
LJS

[gonzex]

I have the same problem
just my computer won't, just says "memory allocation error"
if I unplug the drive it boots normally

[rzooff]

Same isue...
If I have USB drive plugged in, Chameleon causes restart. It happens in the moment that normally GUI should appear (just after "rolling cursor").

My southbridge is ICH8.

[kneekos]

Hello,

I have the same issue. I had posted a couple of days ago.
http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,731.0.html

The problem is related with chameleon directly.
memory allocation error (0xf000f000, 0x2) or similar is chameleon error.
It does not happen when the XP partion is primary and active.

In my previous intallation of OSX with an old chameleon version
(cant remember which one, It was with the old boot menu) all was fine.

I really dont know whats happening because of the following:
-It has to do with disk size or disk type because my 250GB USB boots fine. -the 500GB freeagent Seagate has the problem. Both disks have a mix of partitions so I think its not partition related.

-Also, contrary to you, when I did setup the drive by accident to use Time Machine (losing all my data)
it was booting just fine into osx.
Ive done various combinations on primary/logical/active partitions bla bla...
What I have not done is reformat the drive using the OSX disk utility.
I was thinking of making a first partition HFS+ for Time machine and the rest for other usage.
Maybe this way it could boot since it was ok when Time machine wiped my drive instead of the partition I requested!!

Has anyone tried anything else or a very old version of chameleon. I cant seem to find it on the web any more.


 

[kneekos]

http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,677.0.html
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t167971.html

Im going to try this tomorrow...

[kneekos]

Nop,  deleting the files in /Extra/Extensions did not solve the problem.

[rzooff]

the 500GB freeagent Seagate has the problem.

Mine is also 500GB disk (WD Passport).
I've tried GUID and MBR scheme... still the same.

[kneekos]

OK, problem solved.

Mine is a Seagate 500GB Freeagent 2.5in usb.
Mine was within warranty and Im not sure if it really had an MBR record but they took it back.
Taking the drive back should be your last option as the process of saving data and restoring is painful.
Also I believe its a waste of human and nature resources.

So regarding the problem.
What happens is they come preconfigured.
When I tried changing the partition ie resize and add a second one I got the same problem.
NOW when I tried adding a second partition in front of the main partition it booted fine.

I use the Acronis Disk Director, so the new partition should be on your left handside. I chose FAT32, primary.
I think my drive in the process had its MBR tampered. The whole idea is to return the drive to its initial state.
There should be a utility on the website from the manufacturer to do this.

There could be a chance that the first attempt ie NTFS and then FAT32 did not work because I did an override on the capacity calculation. This means you should leave the partition manager decide on the size it cant be exactly 300GB for example.

I hope this helps.

Let me know what happened.

[rzooff]

I've made a couple tests - partitioning with Disk Utility. Results:
1. All works fine when whole disk is one partition. No matter if it MBR,GUID, FAT32, HFS+ (checked all combinations).
2. Problem (restart) occurs when there are two od more partitions. Still no matter of disk/partition scheme.

kneekos I would like to try your solution, but not sure understand it.

[txbigkahuna]

I have been having a similar problem, but I'm unclear what the solution is that is being described here.  It seems that this issue is not a bug, but a problem with the USB drive partitioning and formatting.  If you could provide a better description of how you got yours to work, I'd really appreciate it.

EDIT:  Nevermind, it appears to be a problem with my machine and a USB drive on boot.  I created a RC3 boot CD and installed 10.5.6 off of CD. Later, I placed RC3 in the EFI partition and it works flawlessly