Unable to boot up in bootcamp after installing Mountain Lion

My suggestion is that people should just stop using Boot Camp. Apple hardware doesn't make for the best gaming platform, and that's about the only legitimate need for native booting Windows anyway. None of these partition and bootloader problems happen when running Windows in a VM, so that's what most people should be doing.

I'm already doing just that... Visual Studio 2010 (and 2012) is kinda slow on a VM, and anyone doing that should do:

- manual backup of the VM files

- add an exclusion to Time Machine, so that the backup process don't get jammed too many times, when passing on the VM directories...

🙂

In my case I like the MBP. It is a great laptop. However I work in Windows. The only time I use OSX is to edit some videos, or iOS development. **** the only reason I upgraded to ML was to get the new Xcode.

So finally after almost 12 hours of ****, here is what I had to do to get up and running.

Reinstall Primary OS that came with the laptop, Leopard. Wipe all partitions and do the fresh install.

After that I had to install the Snow Leopard.

Then Install the App Store

Then Install Mountian Lion

Then Run Boot Camp, save drivers, and Install Windows 7.

Build Windows 7 from the ground up, and wait the 10 years for all the Service Packs to update.

If you are boot camped and you are going to do a Mountion Lion update be sure to back up all your stuff, and be ready for one **** of an adventure. Because Apple is going to F U_C K you up down right and left.

Apple support is 0 help in this matter. They more or less told me to pound sand.

So if you guy want me to pull any settings from my machine now that it is all fresh and working let me know.

Guys:

I had the exact same problem. Windows 7 worked fine and after mountain lion upgrade bootup screen would not come up Black screen. All the discussions on the boot records was good. I was able to get to an apple guy and by a stroke of good fortune and some help from GOD no kidding. We tried the following and it worked fine:

1. Start OS X in single user mode command+s on boot

2. When the root prompt comes up type fsck -fy

3. Type reboot after its done.

4. Here is the link to the articlehttp://support.apple.com/kb/TS1417?viewlocale=en_US

the step where fsck -fy is executed is about halfway down the document. Their example shows /sbin/fsck -fy but the /sbin/ isn't needed unless you proceed this command with other commands.

The process will check the disk and the MBR and correct any issues.

The boot worked fine after that. You will see a new recover disk created by Mountain lion and a new option for booting from network.

Pretty cool

Arthur

I think I might have a solution to this, but it probably needs more people to test it.

I just downloaded the latest Windows Support Software, using the Boot Camp Assistant in Mountain Lion. After the software was burned to a DVD, Boot Camp Assistant asked for permission to install a new helper program.

I'm thinking the helper program fixed some missing settings.

Since then, Windows has booted successfully every time. I didn't even need to install the support software.

Let me know if this works, or if not.

After upgrading to OS X 10.8 my Boot Camp partition disappeared in the same way as for Ricardo Ramalho. I can see it in Disk Utility as a gray partition with the name "disk0s4" that cannot be mounted.

How can I fix the partition table with GPT fdisk? Could you please give some advise Christopher Murphy?

This is the info that "sudo gpt -r -vv show disk0" shows in the Terminal:

mbp-2:~ user$ sudo gpt -r -vv show disk0

gpt show: disk0: mediasize=2000398934016; sectorsize=512; blocks=3907029168

gpt show: disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0

gpt show: disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1

gpt show: disk0: Sec GPT at sector 3907029167

start size index contents

0 1 MBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 32 Pri GPT table

34 6

40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

409640 3625605400 2 GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

3626015040 1269536 3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

3627284576 123387808

3750672384 156356608 4 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

3907028992 143

3907029135 32 Sec GPT table

3907029167 1 Sec GPT header

And:

sudo fdisk /dev/disk0

Signature: 0xAA55

Starting Ending

#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1: EE 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 1 - 409639] <Unknown ID>

2: AF 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 409640 - -669361896] HFS+

3: AB 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [-668952256 - 1269536] Darwin Boot

4: 0C 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [-544294912 - 156356608] Win95 FAT32L

3626015040 1269536 3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

3627284576 123387808

3750672384 156356608 4 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

You have 58GB of free space in between partitions not being used for anything. What it looks like to me is that at some point before upgrading you were messing around with partitions in Disk Utility, or you had a botched Boot Camp Assistant attempt at some point and it was never fixed.

First I'd see if you can recapture that 58GB easily for Mac OS X or not with this command:

diskutil resizevolume /dev/disk0s2 limits

Only after you get the GPT in order should you then create a new hybrid MBR to get Windows to boot again.

Thanks Christopher. But that command doesn't seem to remove the 58GB of free space.

Do I need to boot up in single user mode first?

Could I fix the partition table and the Boot Camp "bootability" without fixing the free 58GB? I don't need them. I just want to backup the stuff on the Boot Camp partition.

diskutil resizevolume /dev/disk0s2 limits

For device disk0s2 iMac:

Current size: 1.9 TB (1856309964800 Bytes)

Minimum size: 1.2 TB (1215110606848 Bytes)

Maximum size: 1.9 TB (1856309964800 Bytes)

sudo fdisk /dev/disk0

Disk: /dev/disk0 geometry: -1539437/4/63 [-387938128 sectors]

Signature: 0xAA55

Starting Ending

#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1: EE 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 1 - 409639] <Unknown ID>

2: AF 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 409640 - -669361896] HFS+

3: AB 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [-668952256 - 1269536] Darwin Boot

4: 0C 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [-544294912 - 156356608] Win95 FAT32L

sudo gpt -r -vv show disk0

Password:

gpt show: disk0: mediasize=2000398934016; sectorsize=512; blocks=3907029168

gpt show: disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0

gpt show: disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1

gpt show: disk0: Sec GPT at sector 3907029167

start size index contents

0 1 MBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 32 Pri GPT table

34 6

40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

409640 3625605400 2 GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

3626015040 1269536 3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

3627284576 123387808

3750672384 156356608 4 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

3907028992 143

3907029135 32 Sec GPT table

3907029167 1 Sec GPT header

The diskutil command was not designed to remove the 58G. It was designed just to find out if it can be done. And it can't. It would require some surgery to relocated the Recovery HD out of the way, then you could recapture that free space. So we'll just move on and make Windows bootable again.

The Apple included fdisk can't edit an MBR on a disk of this size. So you'll need to go to sourceforge and download 'GPT fdisk' to create a new hybrid MBR. What needs to change is in the MBR, 4th line:

4: 0C 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [-544294912 - 156356608] Win95 FAT32L

The 0C is wrong, it should be 07. And it should be marked bootable, but isn't. gdisk can fix this, but it's a manual process, only command line. Here are the commands to use, with explanations in brackets.

sudo gdisk /dev/disk0

r [recovery menu]

h [create new hybrid MBR]

2 3 4 [add partitions 2 3 and 4 to MBR]

y [place 0xEE partition as #1]

<enter> [accept the default]

n [not bootable]

<enter> [accept default]

n [not bootable]

<enter> [accept default]

y [mark as bootable]

w [write changes to disk]

y [confirm you really want to do this]

If you don't understand what any of this means, then don't do it. You'll just have to live with the Boot Camp backup you already have, wipe your disk and start over.

Thanks alot Christopher. I changed it to 07 and marked it as bootable.

Now it appears as a bootable partition during start up. But the Windows 7 system on it doesn't work.

And the Windows 7 DVD cannot repair the "start up issues".

I guess I wont be able to backup the content on the Boot Camp partition then?

The OS X 10.8 installer is really bad. Apple should inform that any previous Boot Camp partition will get "destroyd" during the 10.8 upgrade.

I disagree. Most users are not having this problem. I still don't know why a small percentage do.

Backing up regularly, especially before major upgrades, is a basic computer requirement if you care at all about the data. It doesn't require any warnings in advance. I do feel that Apple should warn users that Boot Camp increases the risk.

Does the Windows (BOOTCAMP) volume mount in Mac OS X?

Okay. Maybe just a few users have these issues.

And ofcourse. One should back up all data regularly, especially before upgrades.

The partition doesn't mount in Finder or with Disk Utility. It is still grey as before.

I will try to clone it to an external FAT32 formatted drive with Data Rescue 3.2 and see if I can get the files that way.

Try this and post the results; use the Advance Editor option (upper right side of the forum reply entry) to change the font for your pasted results to Andale Mono so it's easier for me to read. You can copy-paste these into Terminal, just make sure you copy exactly the first to the last character of each line. These are four separate commands. The first two don't generate any results on-screen. The second two do.

dd if=/dev/disk0 of=~/4s_part3.bin skip=3627284576 count=1

dd if=/dev/disk0 of=~/4s_part4.bin skip=3750672384 count=1

hexdump -C ~/4s_part3.bin

hexdump -C ~/4s_part4.bin

Basically what this does is reads 1 sector from the very beginning of free space, and the very beginning of what's claimed to be the Windows partition, and stores them into two files in your home directory. Then the second set of commands displays the contents of those files. What I'm looking for is header information for the NTFS volume. Maybe the beginning of the Windows partition is somewhere else.

After you do this you can throw away those two .bin files in your home folder.

Instead of posting it, if you prefer this is what I'm looking for, just compare yours to this one. The very top line indicates that this is the first sector of an NTFS volume. Let me know which one has that line.

00000000 eb 52 90 4e 54 46 53 20 20 20 20 00 02 08 00 00 |.R.NTFS .....|

00000010 00 00 00 00 00 f8 00 00 3f 00 ff 00 00 08 00 00 |........?.......|

00000020 00 00 00 00 80 00 80 00 de f7 ff 00 00 00 00 00 |................|

00000030 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 7d ff 0f 00 00 00 00 00 |........}.......|

00000040 f6 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 71 4a 8d 54 62 6d b5 50 |........qJ.Tbm.P|

00000050 00 00 00 00 fa 33 c0 8e d0 bc 00 7c fb 68 c0 07 |.....3.....|.h..|

00000060 1f 1e 68 66 00 cb 88 16 0e 00 66 81 3e 03 00 4e |..hf......f.>..N|

00000070 54 46 53 75 15 b4 41 bb aa 55 cd 13 72 0c 81 fb |TFSu..A..U..r...|

00000080 55 aa 75 06 f7 c1 01 00 75 03 e9 d2 00 1e 83 ec |U.u.....u.......|

00000090 18 68 1a 00 b4 48 8a 16 0e 00 8b f4 16 1f cd 13 |.h...H..........|

000000a0 9f 83 c4 18 9e 58 1f 72 e1 3b 06 0b 00 75 db a3 |.....X.r.;...u..|

000000b0 0f 00 c1 2e 0f 00 04 1e 5a 33 db b9 00 20 2b c8 |........Z3... +.|

000000c0 66 ff 06 11 00 03 16 0f 00 8e c2 ff 06 16 00 e8 |f...............|

000000d0 40 00 2b c8 77 ef b8 00 bb cd 1a 66 23 c0 75 2d |@.+.w......f#.u-|

000000e0 66 81 fb 54 43 50 41 75 24 81 f9 02 01 72 1e 16 |f..TCPAu$....r..|

000000f0 68 07 bb 16 68 70 0e 16 68 09 00 66 53 66 53 66 |h...hp..h..fSfSf|

00000100 55 16 16 16 68 b8 01 66 61 0e 07 cd 1a e9 6a 01 |U...h..fa.....j.|

00000110 90 90 66 60 1e 06 66 a1 11 00 66 03 06 1c 00 1e |..f`..f...f.....|

00000120 66 68 00 00 00 00 66 50 06 53 68 01 00 68 10 00 |fh....fP.Sh..h..|

00000130 b4 42 8a 16 0e 00 16 1f 8b f4 cd 13 66 59 5b 5a |.B..........fY[Z|

00000140 66 59 66 59 1f 0f 82 16 00 66 ff 06 11 00 03 16 |fYfY.....f......|

00000150 0f 00 8e c2 ff 0e 16 00 75 bc 07 1f 66 61 c3 a0 |........u...fa..|

00000160 f8 01 e8 08 00 a0 fb 01 e8 02 00 eb fe b4 01 8b |................|

00000170 f0 ac 3c 00 74 09 b4 0e bb 07 00 cd 10 eb f2 c3 |..<.t...........|

00000180 0d 0a 41 20 64 69 73 6b 20 72 65 61 64 20 65 72 |..A disk read er|

00000190 72 6f 72 20 6f 63 63 75 72 72 65 64 00 0d 0a 42 |ror occurred...B|

000001a0 4f 4f 54 4d 47 52 20 69 73 20 6d 69 73 73 69 6e |OOTMGR is missin|

000001b0 67 00 0d 0a 42 4f 4f 54 4d 47 52 20 69 73 20 63 |g...BOOTMGR is c|

000001c0 6f 6d 70 72 65 73 73 65 64 00 0d 0a 50 72 65 73 |ompressed...Pres|

000001d0 73 20 43 74 72 6c 2b 41 6c 74 2b 44 65 6c 20 74 |s Ctrl+Alt+Del t|

000001e0 6f 20 72 65 73 74 61 72 74 0d 0a 00 00 00 00 00 |o restart.......|

000001f0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 9d b2 ca 00 00 55 aa |..............U.|

00000200 07 00 42 00 4f 00 4f 00 54 00 4d 00 47 00 52 00 |..B.O.O.T.M.G.R.|

00000210 04 00 24 00 49 00 33 00 30 00 00 e0 00 00 00 30 |..$.I.3.0......0|

00000220 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|