I think I broke it...

Post by **mdogg** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 4:48 am

I have a computer with an Asus P5GZ-MX motherboard, a 160gb Seagate Hard drive, a BenQ CD-Rom, a Core 2 Duo processor and Windows 2000 installed. Not too long ago, I tried to multi-boot Windows 2000 and OSx86. I read 3 guides and none of them told me exactly what to do yet I took down lots of notes. Firstly, I removed all the partitions on the drive and setup 1 74gb partition on it and installed OSx86 on it. It booted into the desktop just fine so I decided to move onto installing Windows 2000 on it again. After 2000 installed, I installed the drivers, Microsoft Office and some other software. So that I could multi-boot between the two, I edited the boot.ini and added:

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multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\="Mac OS X"

It didn't work when I tried to boot into it. It just rebooted when I selected it. I also tried using:

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chain0="Mac OS X"

Same result. So I tried making the Mac OS X partition the active one in Windows 2000's diskmgmt.msc. Then I rebooted. Now I get the BIOS screen yet nothing happens. It stays at the BIOS screen. I left it there for half an hour and still it sat at the BIOS screen. However, when I unplug the hard drive, it gets past the BIOS screen but I can't really use a computer without a hard drive. I tried the hard drive in another computer and it worked so it's not the hard drive. I can't even get into the BIOS setup screen with the hard drive plugged in so I don't know what to do. Any suggestions?

Post by **happy dude** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 6:04 am

Put the HDD in another comp, format and put back in your comp. Then try

Post by **empireum** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 9:34 am

Put the HD in another computer, set the Win2k partition to active again and then put it back into your system. That should bring at least Win2k back. Next step is to re-establish the dual-boot.

Just FYI: That:

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multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\="Mac OS X"

will NEVER EVER work. This'll only work for NT-based Microsoft operating systems. That chain0 thing was supposed to work though.

What does your boot.ini contain now? And how's your HD partitioned exactly?

Post by **mdogg** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 3:59 am

My partitions were set up as 74gb for Windows 2000 and 74gb for Mac OS X. I reactivated the Windows 2000 partition in fdisk in another computer but it still didn't work. Then using fdisk, I deleted the Mac OS X partition and now it boots. However I don't have the Mac OS X partition anymore and will need to get it back somehow. And my boot.ini is set up like this:

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multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional"
chain0="Mac OS X"

Post by **empireum** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 4:36 am

Where's your chain0 file located? It needs to be on the root of the Win2k partition for this to work, and the line needs to start with "c:\chain0=...". If I were you, I'd reattempt it with two primary partitions again, with the Win2k partition being the first and then use an external boot loader such as Grub or Acronis OS Selector.

Post by **mdogg** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 7:05 am

Oh whoops. I forgot the to put the path in.

I reinstalled Mac OS X and Windows 2000 and after 3 failed attempts at installing both of them, it finally worked today. Not sure why but computers seem to have a way of working sometimes and not other times even if you do exactly the same thing.

Anyway, the boot.ini now says:

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multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional"
C:\chain0="Mac OS X"

But it doesn't work. I get to the boot menu and it has both of the OS selections but I when I select Mac OS X and press enter, the screen flashes black and comes back to the boot menu. Every time I select Mac OS X and press enter this happens.

Post by **empireum** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 8:50 am

Hmm, strange. What happens if you activate the OS X partition? Does the Darwin boot loader come up, allowing you to boot into Windows? And is the right chain0 file really present?

Post by **mdogg** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 6:09 pm

I used another chain0 file I found on a different website to see how it went. After replacing the old chain0 with the new one, I rebooted and chose Mac OS X in the NTLDR and hit enter. This time, instead of flashing black and coming back to the menu, it went black and "Error loading booter" appeared. Then I booted into Windows and made the OS X partition active. After rebooting, when the BIOS screen passed, I got an "Error loading operating system" message. I booted into Linux and loaded fdisk and made both partitions bootable because I wasn't sure what to do at this point. When I rebooted, I got an "Invalid partition table" I think from the BIOS. I booted back into Linux fdisk and disabled booting for the Mac partition. When I rebooted this time, after the BIOS passed, I got a blinking cursor at the top left corner of the screen. I then booted a DOS startup disk and used fdisk there. Fdisk didn't report anything strange. One NTFS partition set to active and a Non-DOS partition. I don't know what to do now.