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Author Topic: How do I add a third HD?  (Read 3314 times)

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mrdelurk

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How do I add a third HD?
« on: October 30, 2009, 03:57:19 AM »
I ran into a Hackintosh at work, it uses 2 HD's, one with OSX, a second with Win 7.

I added a third SATA drive, and installed a fresh Windows XP SP2 on it , because it's XP what we really need, not Windows 7. Well, the XP drive does show up as a choice in Chameleon, but when I select it, all I get is a black screen with a blinking cursor point. Yet, if the same HD is selected as a primary boot in BIOS, it loads XP like a champ. (The two original drives load fine from Chameleon.)

Is there some sort of "how to add a drive to Chameleon" guide? I ran a topic search already, read the FAQ, opened the com.apple.Boot.plist, and other plist files with today's modification date, and downloaded Chameleon and read through BootHelp.txt. I haven't found any list of HD/OSfile names where I could add the new, third one to load right (which I thought is the key is to getting it to work). Am I trying to go about the task the wrong way?

Blackosx

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Re: How do I add a third HD?
« Reply #1 on: October 30, 2009, 12:58:55 PM »
The problem is with XP and there has been plenty written about it on this forum. To save me typing, click on Search and search for XP blinking cursor and press enter. Have a read through some of the results to find your answer.
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mrdelurk

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Re: How do I add a third HD?
« Reply #2 on: November 01, 2009, 09:52:31 PM »
Hello BlackOSX, thank you for your reply.
I spent the past days reading through the results of the "blinking cursor" search. There are all kinds of approaches suggested in the results. Without citing them all:

1.) Using fixboot and fixmbr from Windows recovery console, booting with Nliteos Windows boot CD...
2.) Using TestDisk to check (and fix? I presume) bootloader files and bootsector...
3.) Using gparted on XP HD to add a HFS+ volume with Chameleon...
4.) Copying the win7 HD signature, fixing Chameleon's "boot0" before writing it to MBR...
5.) Using gparted on XP HD to add a FAT32 volume, create 3 partitions w/ OSX Disk Utility, install OSs next...
6.) Using Partition Magic, the diskpart command, then OSX Disk Utility....

Is there a canonical Chameleon approach, which is the most recommended?

By the way, if adding a third HD represents a major hurdle, would it be simpler if I repartitioned the OK-booting Win 7 HD to install XP into an added partition on it? Or would that just make things worse.

Hmmm, maybe I should just upgrade Win 7 to Ultimate, then I'd have XP virtualization in hardware (reportedly). But then who knows how good it would work? The VMWare virtual machine version of my XP didn't work with some important programs like Cues Granite XP Viewer, only when I installed XP as a boot OS.
« Last Edit: November 01, 2009, 09:57:06 PM by mrdelurk »

Blackosx

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Re: How do I add a third HD?
« Reply #3 on: November 02, 2009, 01:53:29 AM »
I don't know if this was one of the threads you read, but have a look at this one
http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,513.0.html
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mrdelurk

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Re: How do I add a third HD?
« Reply #4 on: November 04, 2009, 08:19:22 PM »
Thank you BlackOSX, I'm almost done following the post you recommended

Done -> I install Windows XP first and then I create new NTFS partition with Windows Disk Management.
Done -> After that I erase NTFS and change to Mac OS X journaled by Mac Disk Utility.
To do-> And clone it from other machine.

I tried the cloning the hidden 200Meg EFI volume on my OSX HD with SuperDuper (OSX) but the app doesn't see it. Windows Disk Management does see it, but it cannot even display its "Properties" let alone do anything with it.
So what tool should I use to clone it? Thank you in advance for your help.

mrdelurk

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Re: How do I add a third HD?
« Reply #5 on: November 04, 2009, 08:41:15 PM »
I solved it, although only semi-elegantly. I installed Chameleon on the XP HD's Mac partition, and made the XP HD the boot drive in BIOS. (I figured what's the worst that can happen? If I mess the small partition up, going back to cloning to it will overwrite the mess anyway.)

Now I can load XP, Win7 and OSX just fine from the 3 different HDs, it's just that the Chameleon partition on the XP HD does come up as a fourth boot option. It would be nice if it could be hidden from sight, but if it's not possible, I can live with it.

Blackosx

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Re: How do I add a third HD?
« Reply #6 on: November 04, 2009, 11:21:40 PM »
Well done mrdelurk.
You have done this all by yourself, I haven't done anything other than help your search ;)

As for hiding your chameleon partition on your XP HD, you can't do that at the moment, but hiding drives/partitions has been a requested feature for future releases.
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zef

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Re: How do I add a third HD?
« Reply #7 on: November 04, 2009, 11:34:56 PM »
As for hiding your chameleon partition on your XP HD, you can't do that at the moment, but hiding drives/partitions has been a requested feature for future releases.

Yeah, the next version can hide unwanted foreign partitions.
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