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Unable to boot OS X after dual booting Ubuntu.

A

Aznskill2k

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 17, 2011
20
0
NYC
Hi, I recently tried to dual boot Ubuntu on my mac osx lion. I'm not sure what went wrong but I currently have Ubuntu running fine but I am unable to boot osx. When I restart my computer I get several options to boot into (Ubuntu, osx 32bit, osx 64bit). When I choose either of the osx a black screen appears and the 64bit has an error sound.

I still have all the files from my mac like documents, etc. Can any1 help me get back mac osx? Thanks!
 
A

Aznskill2k

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 17, 2011
20
0
NYC
Quackers said:
If you reboot and hold down the Alt key do you get the normal Macintosh HD option? Does that boot OSX?
Click to expand...

no nothing happens when I press the alt/option on start up. It bring me to the purplish screen that gives me the option to boot ubuntu, osx 32bit and 64bit.
 
Quackers

Quackers

macrumors 68000
Sep 18, 2013
1,938
708
Manchester, UK
Then it's an EFI installation.

The EFI boot order gets changed when grub-efi is used.
The fact that grub does not boot OSX from either of the menu entries is a bug which I have reported to grub developers. Sadly (as is usual) they don't seem bothered about the problem and tried to blame everyone from me to the computer's firmware rather than try to fix it. So probably no fix soon then :roll eyes:

The only way I know of to change this boot order is to use lichen1668's method as shown in the wiki page below.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookPro11-1/Saucy

Basically, in Ubuntu start a terminal and run
Code: 
sudo apt-get install efibootmgr
Once installed please run
Code: 
sudo efibootmgr
and post the output in your next post.
 
A

Aznskill2k

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 17, 2011
20
0
NYC
BootCurrent: 0000
Timeout: 5 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,0080
Boot0000* ubuntu
Boot0080* Mac OS X
Boot0081* Mac OS X
Boot0082*
BootFFFF*

This is what showed up after the 2 commands. Also when I ran the command to install said efi was already the most updated.
 
A

Aznskill2k

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 17, 2011
20
0
NYC
I am not sure but I only saw 2 after I installed ubuntu, which is a 32bit and 64bit version on the grub startup interface.
 
Quackers

Quackers

macrumors 68000
Sep 18, 2013
1,938
708
Manchester, UK
Hmm, well try these changes first.

In the terminal do
Code: 
sudo efibootmgr -o 0,80
probably better to copy/paste that in to the terminal.

Then do
Code: 
sudo gedit /etc/grub.d/40_custom
when a new window will open up with a few lines of text at the top.

On the next line (after that text finishes) copy/paste this
Code: 
menuentry "MacOS" {
  exit
}
Then save the file (File > save) then close the file and in the terminal run
Code: 
sudo update-grub

When finished close the terminal and reboot.
On reboot you should see a new menu entry called "MacOS"
Choose that and OSX should boot - hopefully :)
 
A

Aznskill2k

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 17, 2011
20
0
NYC
After doing all that it shows.

Generating grub.cfg ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.11.0-17-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.11.0-17-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.11.0-15-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.11.0-15-generic
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin
Found Mac OS X on /dev/sda2
done
 
A

Aznskill2k

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 17, 2011
20
0
NYC
Okay, I rebooted and the same menu came up but this time there was another option called MacOSX. When I choose this 1, it brought me to the rEFit menu where I had the option to choose osx. I am currently on os x lion and it works perfectly.

Is there anything I can do to remove the grub menu and use rEFit instead? Thanks for all your help btw. :)
 
Quackers

Quackers

macrumors 68000
Sep 18, 2013
1,938
708
Manchester, UK
Ok that's good :D
Does Ubuntu boot from the refit menu? Check that first, because if it doesn't and you remove grub you won't be able to boot Ubuntu at all.
 
A

Aznskill2k

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 17, 2011
20
0
NYC
When I rebooted this time the 1st menu that came up with actually the rEFit. It showed 3 options (EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi, EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi, and mac). I choose the ubuntu\grub64.efi and it brought me back to the grub menu and was able to boot ubuntu from there.
 
Quackers

Quackers

macrumors 68000
Sep 18, 2013
1,938
708
Manchester, UK
I might be inclined to leave it for the moment unless Ubuntu will boot directly from the refit menu.
It appears that refit still needs grub to boot Ubuntu.
Refind (which is a more recent fork of refit) may boot Ubuntu via its efi stub by installing the ext4fs driver, if Ubuntu has an efi stub (not sure).
 
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