Cetra
October 9th, 2008, 12:58 AM
Hey Guys,
I am having an issue with triple booting OS X, Ubuntu and Windows XP.
Currently, I have 3 hard drives, all with their separate respective MBRs
C:\ contains the XP bootloader, with my NTFS partition, connected via IDE
H:\ contains Grub, with my Ubuntu partition, connected via SATA
N:\ contains Darwin, with my OS X HFS partition, connected vis SATA
Ok, so I initially just had XP and Ubuntu running, this worked a treat, I could chainload the xp boot easily. Also I could boot into ubuntu and that worked.
Next, I installed OS X on my N:\. I had to change the bios settings for my drives to work in AHCI mode, from IDE mode, as this is what is needed for OS X to work.
I had a few issues with grub and booting into OS X, I ended up copying the chain0 file into the /boot/grub/ directory to get it working because I couldn't chainload directly to the N:\, it just sat there. but that's now working with the chain0 file.
Now my next problem is that, from grub, I can't boot into windows XP. If I set in the BIOS to operate in IDE mode, I can boot into windows from grub. If I set it in AHCI mode, I can boot into windows xp by setting C:\ as the first boot, i.e, bypass grub. But I don't want that. I want grub to be able to boot into windows in AHCI mode.
Ubuntu boots fine, OS X works fine with that little fix, but I can't get windows to boot, it's as if grub can't chainload another drive when in AHCI mode.
I have done a plethora of tests and different configuration options, my current conclusion is that grub doesn't like talking to other drives when in AHCI mode. I am wondering a few things:
Is this a problem with my motherboard and BIOS?
I installed ubuntu when the drive was in IDE mode, it's now working in AHCI, but do I need to reinstall/recompile grub to work correctly?
Are there any settings i need in menu.lst to change to get it talking to the other drives
Is there any way, inside of grub, to just read the MBR of a drive and display it in hex format so I can confirm that grub is reading it correctly? (i.e, cat (hd2,0)+1)
Everytime I change anything in the bios, my hard drive order changes and i need to run sudo fdisk -l and compare that with the device.map file, is there a way of running a command inside of grub similar to fdisk -l, maybe even just get the sizes of the hard drives
Rebooting takes forever, is there a way of testing out grub within ubuntu?
I'm pretty frustrated with it all, it should be working, but it isn't and I really don't know what I'm doing wrong. Any help would be welcome.
I am having an issue with triple booting OS X, Ubuntu and Windows XP.
Currently, I have 3 hard drives, all with their separate respective MBRs
C:\ contains the XP bootloader, with my NTFS partition, connected via IDE
H:\ contains Grub, with my Ubuntu partition, connected via SATA
N:\ contains Darwin, with my OS X HFS partition, connected vis SATA
Ok, so I initially just had XP and Ubuntu running, this worked a treat, I could chainload the xp boot easily. Also I could boot into ubuntu and that worked.
Next, I installed OS X on my N:\. I had to change the bios settings for my drives to work in AHCI mode, from IDE mode, as this is what is needed for OS X to work.
I had a few issues with grub and booting into OS X, I ended up copying the chain0 file into the /boot/grub/ directory to get it working because I couldn't chainload directly to the N:\, it just sat there. but that's now working with the chain0 file.
Now my next problem is that, from grub, I can't boot into windows XP. If I set in the BIOS to operate in IDE mode, I can boot into windows from grub. If I set it in AHCI mode, I can boot into windows xp by setting C:\ as the first boot, i.e, bypass grub. But I don't want that. I want grub to be able to boot into windows in AHCI mode.
Ubuntu boots fine, OS X works fine with that little fix, but I can't get windows to boot, it's as if grub can't chainload another drive when in AHCI mode.
I have done a plethora of tests and different configuration options, my current conclusion is that grub doesn't like talking to other drives when in AHCI mode. I am wondering a few things:
Is this a problem with my motherboard and BIOS?
I installed ubuntu when the drive was in IDE mode, it's now working in AHCI, but do I need to reinstall/recompile grub to work correctly?
Are there any settings i need in menu.lst to change to get it talking to the other drives
Is there any way, inside of grub, to just read the MBR of a drive and display it in hex format so I can confirm that grub is reading it correctly? (i.e, cat (hd2,0)+1)
Everytime I change anything in the bios, my hard drive order changes and i need to run sudo fdisk -l and compare that with the device.map file, is there a way of running a command inside of grub similar to fdisk -l, maybe even just get the sizes of the hard drives
Rebooting takes forever, is there a way of testing out grub within ubuntu?
I'm pretty frustrated with it all, it should be working, but it isn't and I really don't know what I'm doing wrong. Any help would be welcome.