Voodooprojects

Chameleon => General Discussion => Topic started by: iMithos on May 12, 2011, 06:08:03 AM

Title: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: iMithos on May 12, 2011, 06:08:03 AM

Hi!
If you can help me i'll be very gratefull...

My computer: Toshiba L500-245 with i3 processor and ATi 4650


I do the Retail (10.6.0) installation with iBoot legacy and I part all my disc with Disc Utility (During the installation) with Only one partition

The problem have place when I try to install chameleon.

I tried to install it with .pkg on the disk
And I followed this guide: http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php?topic=649.0 from Gringo

But the result it's allways the same: a "_" flashing when i try to launch the System

Can you help me please?
First of all, thanks for reading

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon
Post by: Gringo Vermelho on May 12, 2011, 06:29:17 AM

I'll try to help.

Open a terminal prompt and type diskutil list. Post the output here.

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon
Post by: iMithos on May 12, 2011, 07:19:19 AM

(http://imageshack.us/m/21/9353/capturadepantalla201105t.png)

Thank's for help me :)

PD:
Yes, I use the fdisk of i386
I tried to do the process with a Pendrive

And always i get the blinking "_"
Help please :(

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: Gringo Vermelho on May 12, 2011, 05:12:54 PM

AFAIK if you're getting a blinking cursor means that the partition is not marked active.

If you have followed my guide there should be no problems (he said, overly confident in himself lol)

Are you sure you did this bit right:

Quote

The following step isn’t necessary on all systems but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Make sure the EFI partition is flagged as active.
Verify that you are still in the i386 directory - then type the fdisk command and then each line as shown. Again, if your EFI partition is not on disk0 modify as needed:

1) ./fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0
(Ignore any “fdisk: could not open MBR file /usr/standalone/i386/boot0: No such file or directory” error)

2) f 1

3) w

4) q

Any doubts regarding the above? If you are sure you did it right then I don't know why it's doing that.

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: iMithos on May 12, 2011, 05:47:12 PM

My BIOS Boot Config:
(http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/9351/imag0001b.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/263/imag0001b.jpg/)

That's I do (I try to do it in Single User mode and in de Mac OS X Desktop):
(http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/9905/capturadepantalla201105e.png)

That's I get:
(I have the option "Fast boot" activated in the Bios config, but with "Normal Boot" happens the same)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBywqFz3ong (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBywqFz3ong)

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: iMithos on May 12, 2011, 08:20:15 PM

So, i've conected the Hard disk into another computer and chameleon works
So I thing that it could be a problem in the Bios Config
Here's all the tabs:
(http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/3434/imag0006o.jpg)
(http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/5351/imag0005ntd.jpg)
(http://img852.imageshack.us/img852/1549/imag0004n.jpg)
(http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/663/imag0003kt.jpg)
(http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/6494/imag0002jh.jpg)

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: Gringo Vermelho on May 12, 2011, 10:02:55 PM

That looks fine to me. You posted the same screenshot four times. :)

Did you install to the internal hard drive or is it connected via eSATA or USB?

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: iMithos on May 12, 2011, 10:14:20 PM

Quote from: Gringo Vermelho on May 12, 2011, 10:02:55 PM

That looks fine to me. You posted the same screenshot four times. :)

Did you install to the internal hard drive or is it connected via eSATA or USB?

Yep, I edit :D

It's in Internal Hard Drive... I tried to put it in a box and connect it via USB but the result is the same
The EFI partition has the correct flags (boot)
And the chameleon on the HD works in others computers but in the mine not.
I'm so confused

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: Gringo Vermelho on May 12, 2011, 11:47:57 PM

A true mystery! If the drive is bootable on other PCs then it could be something non-standard with your laptop's BIOS I guess. Or even a bug. Did you check to see if there's a BIOS update for it?

Looking at your screenshots, that Fast/Normal boot setting seems like it could have something to do with it. What happens if you set it to fast?
What you can do in the meantime is install Chameleon to a USB flash drive and boot from that. Well, hopefully that will work. I know it's not very practical but at least you can unplug it once you're done booting.

EDIT.. oh wait, you tried that already. Try changing the "SATA Interface" setting. A wild guess, probably won't change anything.
You can also try setting a password for HDD1. Yes I know it sounds weird, but I remember reading something about that setting having an effect on the ability to boot OS X on a PC. Actually, just carpet bomb it, try setting passwords for everything there and see if it makes any difference.

If that doesn't change anything, try something else, for troubleshooting purposes:
Find the "HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool" with google. Run it on a Windows PC and use it to format your flash drive as a bootable DOS disk. You will need MS DOS boot files as well, some of the tutorials for the HP USB tool that you can find with google will have a link to these. I would attach them here for you but I don't think it's legal.

Now try booting your laptop from that, just to see if it can successfully boot into DOS off of the flash drive. Let me know what happens. If it works I might have an idea what you can try next.

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: iMithos on May 13, 2011, 12:01:22 AM

Quote from: Gringo Vermelho on May 12, 2011, 11:47:57 PM

Find the "HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool" with google (...)

I'm searching for that...
You always can send me a MP xD

EDIT: I need 25 minutes for installing OS X again

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: Gringo Vermelho on May 13, 2011, 12:08:48 AM

No! Say no to private messaging. :) It's counter productive, we must share what we know.

Even if you can't get it to work, whatever we discover here must be kept public so that others can find it and use it later.

(Besides this forum doesn't allow for attachments via PM).
 

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: iMithos on May 13, 2011, 12:33:45 AM

I used the win98 boot files
Fat32 and the things that appears on this image
(http://imageshack.us/m/709/5651/capturadepantalla201105f.png)

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: iMithos on May 13, 2011, 12:40:18 AM

Yep!
It launch DOS
(http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/3674/imag0008he.jpg)

Quote

Now try booting your laptop from that, just to see if it can successfully boot into DOS off of the flash drive. Let me know what happens. If it works I might have an idea what you can try next.

I'm waiting for your idea  :)

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: Gringo Vermelho on May 13, 2011, 01:02:39 AM

Okay, so try formatting your USB flash drive as FAT32 and install Chameleon on it.

You must use boot1f32 instead of boot1h.

I am crossing my fingers because I have never done this myself. I hope it's as simple as that. If formatting it as FAT32 in Windows doesn't work, try using Apple Disk Utility to format it instead and then install again.

Latest Chameleon 2.0 RC5 SVN trunk build attached.

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: iMithos on May 13, 2011, 01:25:44 AM

The things that I have to do are the same as here: http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,649.0.html ?
(I know that I have to change the identifiers to the Pendrive  :lol: Sorry, I'm n00b with all of this)

The same result formating via Disk Util and Windows: :S
(http://imageshack.us/m/41/4701/imag0009o.jpg)

I thing that it must work, but I think that I'm doing something wrong

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: Gringo Vermelho on May 13, 2011, 01:57:26 AM

In theory (I'm about to test this myself, I haven't rebooted yet) it should be as simple as this:

Format the flash drive to FAT32 using Disk Utility, name it CHAM for example

In Terminal

diskutil list (to find out what disk number the flash drive has - the following assume rdisk3)

With i386 folder unzipped to desktop, type

cd ~/desktop/i386

sudo -s (enter your password)

./fdisk -f boot0 -u -y /dev/rdisk3

dd if=boot1f32 of=/dev/rdisk3s1

cp boot /Volumes/CHAM

exit

Now copy your Extra folder to it.

Bingo.

If you have "hide partition", "default partition" and/or "rename partition" set in com.apple.Boot.plist (you won't have those since you only have one hard drive) they need to be removed as the partition order will likely be completely different when booting from the flash drive.

I'm going to reboot now and see if I can boot from this thing.

/EDIT guess what, it didn't work. Hang on, I'll try formatting it in Windows.

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: iMithos on May 13, 2011, 02:16:19 AM

It gives you the same error than me?

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: Gringo Vermelho on May 13, 2011, 02:38:01 AM

Oh well formatting in Windows gave the same result. What's more, the flash drive becomes unreadable after trying to boot from it!

I don't get the same error as you, for me it's worse, I see boot0: error and then nothing else happens.

This should work, I think we are missing something but I don't know what.

For some reason I cannot use the new fdisk that ships with the Chameleon source, I get "permission denied" whenever I try to run it. Mine bombs out at boot0 because I'm using an older fdisk binary I guess.

/EDIT - after setting the flash drive partition active with fdisk I see the same error message as you.

I'm sure you will be able to boot if you can figure out a way to install Chameleon on FAT32 on your flash drive. Perhaps you could even initialize the EFI partition on your HDD to FAT32 and boot from that. But at this point I have no idea how this is supposed to work.

Hopefully someone else will see this thread and suggest something. In the meantime I'll hit google and see what I can find.

Try the password thing in your BIOS with Chameleon installed to the EFI partition on your HDD (see previous page).

Another thing; can I ask you to please don't quote my posts in their entirety when replying? As you may have noticed, I have edited all your previous posts and removed or trimmed the quotes. There is no reason to full-quote when you reply is directly below the post you are replying to, in the end the thread will be full of quotes with repeating garbage text that you have to scroll past and that is bad for readability.

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: Gringo Vermelho on May 13, 2011, 03:04:06 AM

I forgot about this, I'm going to try it: http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php?topic=1427.0

That post also explains why the drive becomes unreadable.

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: iMithos on May 13, 2011, 03:12:16 AM

I'll try it too :)

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: iMithos on May 13, 2011, 03:30:46 AM

The thing of the passwords don't worked for me
I'm going to test the corona's tutorial

EDIT: I still can't load chameleon after the coruna's tutorial T___T

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: Blackosx on May 13, 2011, 10:43:44 AM

I'm not sure if this is relevant as I haven't properly read the posts here, but I remember installing Chameleon to a FAT formatted EFI system partition using boot1f32. Maybe the steps can help here?
http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,1671.msg8677.html#msg8677

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: iMithos on May 13, 2011, 03:50:25 PM

I formatted the "EFI" partition as fat32 and instaled chameleon in it, but I can start chameleon only when I have the WIndows 7 Install disc on the DVD reader and I ignore the message "Press any key to boot from cd..."
So, if I do that, chameleon starts
But if I try to start Mac OS X it crashes
:S

...

I'll give it as impossible to install&lauch chameleon in this laptop and forget all this

Thanks to all for helping me :)

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: Blackosx on May 13, 2011, 04:50:27 PM

Quote from: iMithos on May 13, 2011, 03:50:25 PM

I formatted the "EFI" partition as fat32 and instaled chameleon in it
...../snip/....
chameleon starts

So in a round-about way, Chameleon does actually load and run now?

Quote from: iMithos on May 13, 2011, 03:50:25 PM

but I can start chameleon only when I have the WIndows 7 Install disc on the DVD reader and I ignore the message "Press any key to boot from cd..."

This is strange and doesn't make any sense as you have the HDD set in BIOS as the 1st boot priority.
So what happens when you boot without the Windows 7 DVD in the drive? Can you disable the DVD drive in BIOS?

Quote from: iMithos on May 13, 2011, 03:50:25 PM

But if I try to start Mac OS X it crashes

Booting OS X brings a different set of problems and for that I suggest searching and reading a forum dedicated to running OS X on a PC. Try this link for a starting point (http://www.google.co.uk/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=toshiba+L500+site:insanelymac.com&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&redir_esc=&ei=X0TNTdr7HM2v8QPD-qXoDQ). This forum is just dedicated to Chameleon.

Quote from: iMithos on May 13, 2011, 03:50:25 PM

I'll give it as impossible to install&lauch chameleon in this laptop and forget all this

If I've interpreted your post correctly then I think you have successfully installed and launched Chameleon

Quote from: iMithos on May 13, 2011, 03:50:25 PM

Thanks to all for helping me :)

YW :)

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: iMithos on May 13, 2011, 04:56:29 PM

Quote

So in a round-about way, Chameleon does actually load and run now?

Yes

Quote

This is strange and doesn't make any sense as you have the HDD set in BIOS as the 1st boot priority.
So what happens when you boot without the Windows 7 DVD in the drive? Can you disable the DVD drive in BIOS?

You can see the boot priority in the first page of this topic
Simply: If I try to start from the hard drive without any boot cd, My laptop don't starts chameleon
If I put any boot cd and ignore the "Prss any key..." message, i can start chameleon

Quote

Booting OS X brings a different set of problems and for that I suggest searching and reading a forum dedicated to running OS X on a PC. Try this link for a starting point (http://www.google.co.uk/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=toshiba+L500+site:insanelymac.com&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&redir_esc=&ei=X0TNTdr7HM2v8QPD-qXoDQ). This forum is just dedicated to Chameleon.

I know it, I have all the kexts for this laptop and all the .plist etc etc...

Quote

If I've interpreted your post correctly then I think you have successfully installed and launched Chameleon

Yes, but if I always need an Windows Boot CD to launch it... Hit my head with a Shotgun xD

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: Gringo Vermelho on May 13, 2011, 05:11:17 PM

Maybe the BIOS has a problem with reading HFS or GPT bootsector or MBR whatever it is it needs to read in order to boot...I don't understand these things very well  :)

It could boot into DOS on a flash drive - therefore I'm 99% sure it will work if you can FAT32 the EFI partition and install Chameleon there.

But we can't figure out how to get Chameleon working on a FAT32 formatted flash drive so...you will run into the same issues with the hard drive.

I would keep trying to get FAT32 working on the flash drive, and then once you succeed, use the same method on your hard drive.

Title: Re: Help with SL Retail and Chameleon, blinking "_"
Post by: iMithos on May 13, 2011, 05:18:07 PM

Quote from: Gringo Vermelho on May 13, 2011, 05:11:17 PM

I would keep trying to get FAT32 working on the flash drive, and then once you succeed, use the same method on your hard drive.

If you finally get working it... Please, put here as you did