Level 1

10 points

Cannot Boot Vista SP2 on Mavericks 10.9.3

Hi,

I have an older mid-2007 MacBook Pro 2.2GHz running Mavericks 10.9.3. I can no longer boot into my Windows Vista Service Pack 2 partion. The Vista partition does not show up if I hold the "option" key during boot. If I try to boot directly to the Vista partition I get a "

No bootable device --- insert boot disk and press any key

error. The odd thing is that if I use Parallels 8 and a Vista Bootcamp Virtual Machine, the Windows OS boots fine. I think it is a problem with the bootloader of some sort. I also have trouble marking the Windows partition active using DISKPART in Windows. Apparently GPT disks cannot be marked active. See this screen for partition layout; it is output of diskutil list

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 250.0 GB disk0s2

3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3

4: Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP 249.2 GB disk0s4

Is there any way to set the BOOTCAMP partition active and start booting from it? Thanks for your help.

Mike

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.3)

Posted on May 22, 2014 2:09 PM

19 replies

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

May 30, 2014 2:24 PM in response to fourwheelin

fourwheelin wrote:

Hex code or GUID (L to show codes, Enter = af00): ef00

Changed type of partition to 'EFI System'

Command (? for help): q

Redacteds-MacBook-Pro:~ redacted$

The following

q quit without saving changes

w write table to disk and exit

You need to use 'w' to write your changes. 😉

fourwheelin Author

Level 1

10 points

May 31, 2014 11:14 AM in response to Loner T

Loner T,

Thanks. Duh! I will have to chalk that up to a stupid newbie mistake. I think I finally have some inkling of the procedure after reading through things several times. There may be other issues though. I am fairly comfortable with things in the Windows Recovery environment, and I did try reading information there. From the partition information in DISKPART, it may even happen to be that the Windows Vista partition is actually hidden, but I am unfamiliar with the commands in either Windows or Mac to "unhide" a GPT based partition.

Further, as you said it is a good idea to back up the partition data, and I do understand the command in gdisk to do that is "b". But is there any particular way that the file needs to be named, as in something.exrension You also mentioned that the file needs to be backed up to a USB key. Is there any particular way the file name needs to be handled in order to back up to the USB key? Does the USB key receiving the backup partition need to be formatted in a special way, e.g., FAT vs NTFS or OS X Extended Journaled.) Can I write the backup directly to a USB key from gdisk, or should I drag and drop the file to the USB key? My reason here for asking is my relative lack of familiarity with Mac OS X file paths using the terminal, in Windows I am OK. Also, where does the backed up partition data exist on the hard drive on the Mac?

Assuming I get all the data backed up, is the next step to load the recovery environment from gdisk and write a hybrid MBR table? option r, then h. Then specify that partitions 2,3, and 4 be included in the new table, and also that partition 1 be EFI (I think the wording is "suitable for GRUB" or something similar?

Please reply back when you can. Thanks for your help.

fourwheelin Author

Level 1

10 points

May 31, 2014 11:21 AM in response to fourwheelin

Hi Loner T,

Forgot to mention that partitions 2, 3 and 4 need to be made bootable by answering "Y". Also, just to check, partition 1 is now EFI:

Redacteds-MacBook-Pro:~ redacted$ diskutil list

/dev/disk0

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 250.0 GB disk0s2

3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3

4: Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP 249.2 GB disk0s4

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

May 31, 2014 9:34 PM in response to fourwheelin

I do not have fdisk in my DNA either.

Here is what I did as a test...

sudo gdisk /dev/disk0

Password:

GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.9

Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their

partition table automatically reloaded!

Partition table scan:

MBR: hybrid

BSD: not present

APM: not present

GPT: present

Found valid GPT with hybrid MBR; using GPT.

Command (? for help): ?

b back up GPT data to a file

c change a partition's name

d delete a partition

i show detailed information on a partition

l list known partition types

n add a new partition

o create a new empty GUID partition table (GPT)

p print the partition table

q quit without saving changes

r recovery and transformation options (experts only)

s sort partitions

t change a partition's type code

v verify disk

w write table to disk and exit

x extra functionality (experts only)

? print this menu

Command (? for help): b

Enter backup filename to save: myGPTBackup

The operation has completed successfully.

Command (? for help): q

There is nothing special abot the the backup file or the USB key on which put it. Make it a FAT file system USB, so it can be read on multiple OSes, in case there are future issues. The backup file is a binary file, which can be loaded back, if necessary.

Recovery/transformation command (? for help): ?

l load partition data from a backup file

The thread from Number88 shows putting 2,3,4 (typical) into the hybrid MBR, and making only 4 bootable via fdisk. The MBR needs to have partition 4 as bootable where Windows is located.

You may need Windows recovery once the MBR is setup correctly.

Use file command in OSX Terminal to see what is in the myGPTbackup.

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Cannot Boot Vista SP2 on Mavericks 10.9.3