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#1 2010-05-25 15:47:43

meolson
Member
From: Logan, UT
Registered: 2009-05-31
Posts: 7

Triple Boot-OSX, Arch, Windows XP on Macbook [SOLVED]

I'm sorry if I'm duplicating a post, but I can't find any working solution in the forum.  I'm trying to triple-boot my macbook with OSX, Arch, and Windows XP.  Windows gave me some trouble when I tried to add a new ext3 partition.  So, I reinstalled windows on FAT32, and it seems to work fine now.  But when I try to install Arch, the installation fails while installing grub.  Here's my setup on my macbook:

/dev/sda1: EFI
/dev/sda2: Mac OSX (HFS+)
/dev/sda3: Trying to install Arch Linux
/dev/sda4: Windows XP (FAT32)

I have followed the tutorial at http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MacBook. When I try to install Arch, everything goes smoothly until I try to install grub.  The installation fails, and /dev/tty7 gives me:

grub> device (hd0,2) /dev/sda
grub> root(hd0,2)
   Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0xaf
grub> setup (hd0,2)

Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition
grub> quit

I triple- and quadruple-checked menu.lst, and everything looks just right.  Here's what I have:

# (0) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux
root   (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda3 ro reboot=pci
initrd /boot/kernel26.img

# (1) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux Fallback
root   (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda3 ro reboot=pci
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img

When I look at the partition scheme in parted (from the Arch installation CD), /dev/sda3 is formated as ext3, but when I look at the partition table in rEFIt, it says that it's formated as HFS+, which it was when I created the partition, but shouldn't be anymore.  But then again, going back to the error, it was labeling the partition type as 0xaf, which is HFS/HFS+.  So, this seems to be the problem--the installation isn't formating /dev/sda3 as ext3, but leaving it as HFS+.  So, why isn't it formating to ext3? And why does parted say it is ext3, when it seems like it's not?

Any ideas?
meolson

Last edited by meolson (2010-05-26 13:38:30)

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#2 2010-05-26 13:38:07

meolson
Member
From: Logan, UT
Registered: 2009-05-31
Posts: 7

Re: Triple Boot-OSX, Arch, Windows XP on Macbook [SOLVED]

As I pondered more on the problem, I decided to try something and it worked.  In case anyone else has the same problem, here's what I did.

-On the Arch Linux installation CD, enter parted.
-Delete the linux partition, in my case, /dev/sda3.
-Use mkpartfs to recreate the linux partition as ext2 or ext3. I did ext2, as parted, for some reason, didn't let me make ext3. It doesn't matter, it'll change later anyway.
-Run the install again.  Now that the partition is in a format that linux can understand, it will be able to finish the installation.

This worked just beautifully, and now my computer works just fine under OSx, Linux, or Windows.

Thanks to anyone who may have looked into this one.  Best of luck!

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