Which program did you use to copy the OS X HDD to your external drive? Is CarbonCopyCloner good enough to do this?
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Expresscard/34 esata controller available from Addonics
- Thread starter lssmit02
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Which program did you use to copy the OS X HDD to your external drive? Is CarbonCopyCloner good enough to do this?
I have noticed some things when I was trying a bit around.
When I first attempted to boot my MBP from rEFIt with the Vista Install DVD inserted and my new 500GB HDD attached to the ExpressCard there was a DOS-like screen flashing up that said:
Then the Vista installation routine began and it ended where I had to choose the installation target. That was where only the internal HDD of my MBP showed up in the list of available HDDs with the message that "Vista cannot be installed on GPT disks".
That is very interesting indeed, as I didn't really care about the flashing BIOS-screen while booting.
Actually I was just paying attention to what happened when I hooked up my "old" 320GB Windows HDD (relic from my PC I sold before getting my MBP with Windows XP installed on it). First I tried booting it with rEFIt via the USB interface of my external case, showing up all the available partitions of the drive but plus an extra icon on the side of the others saying "Boot Legacy OS from HD". Note that the ExpressCard was still attached to the MBP, though the cable was not connected to the HDD. Choosing this option didn't result in anything as did trying to boot from the NTFS partitions, because this resulted in the (expected - because well-known) error message complaining about the lack of Legacy OS booting capabilities.
OK, then I attached the very same disk to the ExpressCard and the eSATA interface of my HDD enclosure and fired my MBP up again.
There I had only two icons appearing that were the "Boot Mac OS" and the "Boot Legacy OS from HD" icon. So I chose the latter. Again, the BIOS-like screen flashed up, this time with the matching HDD information, the screen flashes again and then it ends with a "NTLDR is missing - Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart" message.
Maybe there is nothing special about what I was observing with the BIOS screens, but I think this behavior is quite different from what you have experienced.
Anyway I still have to solve the problem that the 500GB external HDD doesn't show up in the Vista installation and I would like to investigate why my existing XP installation doesn't start but quits with the "NTLDR is missing" message.
So here is what I'm about to do:
Install XP via BootCamp on my MBP, flash the ExpressCard to the latest BIOS (7.4.05).
Then I would just have to find a way to install/copy the ExpressCard drivers on XP like you did on Vista and try to boot off the external drive (though this is the difficult part where I still have to find a way to get the drivers on my already existing XP installation).
I also have to sort out the "NTLDR is missing" problem.
Now I can think of two ways to make the thing work:
1. copy over/clone the BootCamp XP installation with installed ExpressCard drivers to my external 500GB disk (with or without OS X)
2. once installed, booting into the BootCamp XP installation with the other drive containing my old XP installations attached to the MBP and manually copying the drivers to this old XP installation as well as editing whatever is needed to get rid of the "NTLDR is missing" error on boot-up from this disk.
Once this runs, I could delete the BootCamp partition from my MBP and boot right off my XP installation. The same applies to Vista. Maybe I will also try the same steps with BootCamp and Vista.
Well, that is what I can imagine right now to make everything work as desired, though I will still have to try the GRUB method with the files you provided.
Gosh, this whole thing didn't let me sleep, I actually woke up to write all this down (after going to bed at like 05:00AM, just thinking about how to solve the thing, impossible to fall asleep and still sitting in front of the MBP at 10:03 - I must be insane!)
I will try and get some sleep right now and try out my theories later this day (some time in the afternoon I guess...
)
Excuse the poor quality of the attached pictures, expecially the one with the flash.
When I first attempted to boot my MBP from rEFIt with the Vista Install DVD inserted and my new 500GB HDD attached to the ExpressCard there was a DOS-like screen flashing up that said:
Code:
Sil 3132 SATALink BIOS Version 7.2.30 Copyright (C) 1997 - 2005 Silicon Image, Inc
0 ST3500630AS 468GBThen the Vista installation routine began and it ended where I had to choose the installation target. That was where only the internal HDD of my MBP showed up in the list of available HDDs with the message that "Vista cannot be installed on GPT disks".
That is very interesting indeed, as I didn't really care about the flashing BIOS-screen while booting.
Actually I was just paying attention to what happened when I hooked up my "old" 320GB Windows HDD (relic from my PC I sold before getting my MBP with Windows XP installed on it). First I tried booting it with rEFIt via the USB interface of my external case, showing up all the available partitions of the drive but plus an extra icon on the side of the others saying "Boot Legacy OS from HD". Note that the ExpressCard was still attached to the MBP, though the cable was not connected to the HDD. Choosing this option didn't result in anything as did trying to boot from the NTFS partitions, because this resulted in the (expected - because well-known) error message complaining about the lack of Legacy OS booting capabilities.
OK, then I attached the very same disk to the ExpressCard and the eSATA interface of my HDD enclosure and fired my MBP up again.
There I had only two icons appearing that were the "Boot Mac OS" and the "Boot Legacy OS from HD" icon. So I chose the latter. Again, the BIOS-like screen flashed up, this time with the matching HDD information, the screen flashes again and then it ends with a "NTLDR is missing - Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart" message.
Maybe there is nothing special about what I was observing with the BIOS screens, but I think this behavior is quite different from what you have experienced.
Anyway I still have to solve the problem that the 500GB external HDD doesn't show up in the Vista installation and I would like to investigate why my existing XP installation doesn't start but quits with the "NTLDR is missing" message.
So here is what I'm about to do:
Install XP via BootCamp on my MBP, flash the ExpressCard to the latest BIOS (7.4.05).
Then I would just have to find a way to install/copy the ExpressCard drivers on XP like you did on Vista and try to boot off the external drive (though this is the difficult part where I still have to find a way to get the drivers on my already existing XP installation).
I also have to sort out the "NTLDR is missing" problem.
Now I can think of two ways to make the thing work:
1. copy over/clone the BootCamp XP installation with installed ExpressCard drivers to my external 500GB disk (with or without OS X)
2. once installed, booting into the BootCamp XP installation with the other drive containing my old XP installations attached to the MBP and manually copying the drivers to this old XP installation as well as editing whatever is needed to get rid of the "NTLDR is missing" error on boot-up from this disk.
Once this runs, I could delete the BootCamp partition from my MBP and boot right off my XP installation. The same applies to Vista. Maybe I will also try the same steps with BootCamp and Vista.
Well, that is what I can imagine right now to make everything work as desired, though I will still have to try the GRUB method with the files you provided.
Gosh, this whole thing didn't let me sleep, I actually woke up to write all this down (after going to bed at like 05:00AM, just thinking about how to solve the thing, impossible to fall asleep and still sitting in front of the MBP at 10:03 - I must be insane!)
I will try and get some sleep right now and try out my theories later this day (some time in the afternoon I guess...
)Excuse the poor quality of the attached pictures, expecially the one with the flash.
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Damn, your even more fanatic about this then me
First of:
You can make your ExpressCard attached drive visible by choosing the "Custom (advanced)" installation method, then in the drive section choose "Load driver".
After loading the driver provided by SI the drive showed up.
But no matter what I did (format, new partitions etc) Vista could not use the drive as the installation drive. Possibly because it wants to sit on the (visible) primary hard drive?
As I understand correctly, you could see your ExpressCard attached (e)SATA drive in rEFIt? I can hardly believe that. There is to my knowledge no way for rEFIt to know about this drive without having EFI drivers for the ExpressCard.
Are you sure you weren't blinded by the lack of sleep
I wasn't able to successfully install XP on the external drive. Even after creating a custom installation cd with the ExpressCard drivers already build in. Maybe installing XP first on the MBP's internal drive, install drivers and then clone to external drive is an option.
The "NTLDR is missing" error can mean a myriad of things, but without the ExpressCards drivers loaded XP isn't going to start.
First of:
You can make your ExpressCard attached drive visible by choosing the "Custom (advanced)" installation method, then in the drive section choose "Load driver".
After loading the driver provided by SI the drive showed up.
But no matter what I did (format, new partitions etc) Vista could not use the drive as the installation drive. Possibly because it wants to sit on the (visible) primary hard drive?
As I understand correctly, you could see your ExpressCard attached (e)SATA drive in rEFIt? I can hardly believe that. There is to my knowledge no way for rEFIt to know about this drive without having EFI drivers for the ExpressCard.
Are you sure you weren't blinded by the lack of sleep
I wasn't able to successfully install XP on the external drive. Even after creating a custom installation cd with the ExpressCard drivers already build in. Maybe installing XP first on the MBP's internal drive, install drivers and then clone to external drive is an option.
The "NTLDR is missing" error can mean a myriad of things, but without the ExpressCards drivers loaded XP isn't going to start.
One other thing. Maybe Vista will install when the primary harddisk is disabled (not attached). I can't try this because it might void my (my boss actually) MBP's warranty. After the installation is done you can reattach the disk and boot it with the bootable grub cd.
Just a thought,
Just a thought,
Here I am back among the living, erm, I mean awake...
Thank you for the hints. I also thought about detaching the internal HDD of the MBP but I know about the drawback which is essentially the void of the warranty (well, if I had the money, I would eventually try replacing my stock MBP display with a high-def 1920x1200 screen) but also that it is a bit of a hassle to do this just for that purpose.
So back again to what I observed: actually I think what rEFIt shows (the right icon titled "Boot Legacy OS from HD" in the image I provided) is not the hard drive itself but the ExpressCard being attached to the MBP.
What makes me believe this is the fact that the same icon was also there when the ExpressCard was attached, but the external HDD was hooked up with the USB cable.
I neglected clicking this icon to see what happens, i.e. if it also shows the SI BIOS screen.
I guess I will do so just to make sure my observations are right, though I am pretty sure it was not the lack of sleep that led to what I saw (actually the screenshots should prove this).
I also have another USB stick with an XP installation on it, which "should" be able to boot from that stick. I will also try if this is useable in some form as in the past it didn't work (I thought it is the USB stick which is not bootable or something).
The most interesting thing to try is maybe the advanced installation of Vista. I'll give that a try and see if I can install it on the external HDD right away.
I'll report later on if I was lucky or not, stay tuned...
Thank you for the hints. I also thought about detaching the internal HDD of the MBP but I know about the drawback which is essentially the void of the warranty (well, if I had the money, I would eventually try replacing my stock MBP display with a high-def 1920x1200 screen
) but also that it is a bit of a hassle to do this just for that purpose. So back again to what I observed: actually I think what rEFIt shows (the right icon titled "Boot Legacy OS from HD" in the image I provided) is not the hard drive itself but the ExpressCard being attached to the MBP.
What makes me believe this is the fact that the same icon was also there when the ExpressCard was attached, but the external HDD was hooked up with the USB cable.
I neglected clicking this icon to see what happens, i.e. if it also shows the SI BIOS screen.
I guess I will do so just to make sure my observations are right, though I am pretty sure it was not the lack of sleep that led to what I saw (actually the screenshots should prove this).
I also have another USB stick with an XP installation on it, which "should" be able to boot from that stick. I will also try if this is useable in some form as in the past it didn't work (I thought it is the USB stick which is not bootable or something).
The most interesting thing to try is maybe the advanced installation of Vista. I'll give that a try and see if I can install it on the external HDD right away.
I'll report later on if I was lucky or not, stay tuned...
OK, here's already the update:
I now can definitely confirm that the "Boot Legacy OS from HD" icon that shows up in rEFIt is from the ExpressCard. I first attempted to boot the upmentioned XP on the USB stick (which failed with the same Legacy OS error message as usually when trying to boot from USB). There already, in the rEFIt menu, the "Boot Legacy OS from HD" icon was also present.
Then I detached the USB stick and hookep up back the hard drive with the XP installations. I rebooted into rEFIt again and the icon was still present alongside the other icons from the hard disk.
I have to stress that ONLY the ExpressCard itself was attached to the MBP in both cases, no hard drive connected to it!
So, this time I chose to click on that icon to see what happens (I know that clicking on one of the XP hard disk partition results in the very same error message anyway) and here is what happened:
the SiliconImage BIOS screen showed up, as we already experienced, then comes an error message saying "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key" which is plainly logic, because there was no drive attached to the ExpressCard.
I also took some new pictures which I won't withhold. Here they are:
I now can definitely confirm that the "Boot Legacy OS from HD" icon that shows up in rEFIt is from the ExpressCard. I first attempted to boot the upmentioned XP on the USB stick (which failed with the same Legacy OS error message as usually when trying to boot from USB). There already, in the rEFIt menu, the "Boot Legacy OS from HD" icon was also present.
Then I detached the USB stick and hookep up back the hard drive with the XP installations. I rebooted into rEFIt again and the icon was still present alongside the other icons from the hard disk.
I have to stress that ONLY the ExpressCard itself was attached to the MBP in both cases, no hard drive connected to it!
So, this time I chose to click on that icon to see what happens (I know that clicking on one of the XP hard disk partition results in the very same error message anyway) and here is what happened:
the SiliconImage BIOS screen showed up, as we already experienced, then comes an error message saying "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key" which is plainly logic, because there was no drive attached to the ExpressCard.
I also took some new pictures which I won't withhold. Here they are:
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Here are some more pictures I took with several setups (USB Stick connected, Vista DVD inserted).
Note that the "Boot Legacy OS from HD" icon is always present!
I also updated the BIOS screen pics (better quality).
About flashing the ExpressCard BIOS, I don't know if I should dare this, because first of all it works and then because SiliconImage warns about it: "Do NOT flash system BIOS into an add-in card BIOS." (from the 7.4.05 BIOS description) and "This utility is for PC add-in cards only. Do NOT use this utility for Macintosh add-in cards." (from the BIOS Update Utility v3.35 description).
Note that the "Boot Legacy OS from HD" icon is always present!
I also updated the BIOS screen pics (better quality).
About flashing the ExpressCard BIOS, I don't know if I should dare this, because first of all it works and then because SiliconImage warns about it: "Do NOT flash system BIOS into an add-in card BIOS." (from the 7.4.05 BIOS description) and "This utility is for PC add-in cards only. Do NOT use this utility for Macintosh add-in cards." (from the BIOS Update Utility v3.35 description).
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When you have nothing connected to the MBP, does that give you only a single icon/ option in rEFIt ?
Insterting a usb-stick often gives you 2 extra icons.
Insterting a usb-stick often gives you 2 extra icons.
I will try this. Anyway I have to connect my card-reader with the memory card where I installed rEFIt to boot from.
EDIT:
I am glad you asked. Since there are two icons (as seen in one of the pictures above)I now know that the "Boot Legacy OS from HD" is not directly related to the ExpressCard, but that the card is definitely recognized as a bootable device. Clicking on that icon results in the "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key" error message.
How about flashing? Would you say I should try it or better not? Can you tell me what is the difference between the 7405.bin and the b7405.bin which are included in the latest BIOS zip file from SI? I know that the r7405.bin is for RAID.
EDIT:
I am glad you asked. Since there are two icons (as seen in one of the pictures above)I now know that the "Boot Legacy OS from HD" is not directly related to the ExpressCard, but that the card is definitely recognized as a bootable device. Clicking on that icon results in the "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key" error message.
How about flashing? Would you say I should try it or better not? Can you tell me what is the difference between the 7405.bin and the b7405.bin which are included in the latest BIOS zip file from SI? I know that the r7405.bin is for RAID.
I don't see any reason to flash the BIOS. I flashed my card because that allows the default driver to function properly.
Setting up bootcamp (creating a separate partition / hybrid GPT/MBR) will also create an extra icon.
Setting up bootcamp (creating a separate partition / hybrid GPT/MBR) will also create an extra icon.
Now I can definitely say that Vista (at least I can talk for the 32-bit version) doesn't support GPT style disks. So I guess I have to reformat my external HDD with the MBR scheme. I hope that Mac OS X can cope with this if I make a copy of my Mac HD, so it will still be bootable.
The good news is that I could load the SiliconImage SATA drivers so that Vista detected my external HDD. I would install the 64-bit version of Vista if it had driver support for the MBP. So I will stick with 32-bit for now!
It is strange though that GPT disks don't seem to work as I found several articles that clearly said the contrary that Vista does support it.
Here is one excerpt from a Microsoft FAQ:
There is another idea I just had in mind:
Would it be possible to install Vista via BootCamp and after installation copy over the BootCamp partition to the external disk so that Vista would still be bootable or would this only work if I make a complete clone of the entire Mac HD including the BootCamp partition or would neither of these methods work?
The second, convenient solution would be to reformat the external disk in the MBR pattern and then clone the complete Mac OS hard disk and copy it over to the external disk as Mac OS X also boots from MBR.
This is getting a bit (Mac OS X/Vista-) specific, anyway I hope this will help other people, too.
The good news is that I could load the SiliconImage SATA drivers so that Vista detected my external HDD. I would install the 64-bit version of Vista if it had driver support for the MBP. So I will stick with 32-bit for now!
It is strange though that GPT disks don't seem to work as I found several articles that clearly said the contrary that Vista does support it.
Here is one excerpt from a Microsoft FAQ:
It seems that the rEFIt Myths and Facts about Intel Macs-FAQ is much more accurate than what Microsoft says, weird!
There is another idea I just had in mind:
Would it be possible to install Vista via BootCamp and after installation copy over the BootCamp partition to the external disk so that Vista would still be bootable or would this only work if I make a complete clone of the entire Mac HD including the BootCamp partition or would neither of these methods work?
The second, convenient solution would be to reformat the external disk in the MBR pattern and then clone the complete Mac OS hard disk and copy it over to the external disk as Mac OS X also boots from MBR.
This is getting a bit (Mac OS X/Vista-) specific, anyway I hope this will help other people, too.
If you clone an entire hard disk, you will also copy the MBR / GPT information.
The best way to find out what works is to just try it. I haven't tried your last proposal for Vista because I have it already working. I suspect that after cloning the Vista partition to the external disk you at least have to do a repair from Vista's recovery tools (install dvd) to restore/create a bootable MBR on the external disk. Unfortunately I don't think you will be able to do this when the external disk is connected to your MBP. This is because Vista wants to update the primary hard disk, the MBP's internal drive but this drive has a GPT scheme.
The best way to find out what works is to just try it. I haven't tried your last proposal for Vista because I have it already working. I suspect that after cloning the Vista partition to the external disk you at least have to do a repair from Vista's recovery tools (install dvd) to restore/create a bootable MBR on the external disk. Unfortunately I don't think you will be able to do this when the external disk is connected to your MBP. This is because Vista wants to update the primary hard disk, the MBP's internal drive but this drive has a GPT scheme.
So I was trying to install Vista on the now MBR style eSATA disk. Loaded the Sil 3132 drivers to make the drive show up, created two new partitions and got another error message upon selecting one of the partitions. I already begin to give up Vista before even having installed it! But not yet - I am looking for the cause and a solution to this problem!
EDIT:
It seems that Vista shos up this error message because the partition I want to install it on is not set as active. Therefore I decided to burn a bootable CD with a partition manager which lets me do this, but no chance - both solutions I tried booted well but didn't left my keyboard unusable after booting up. This may be due to lack of USB powered input devices (as neither my mouse nor my trackpad were working, too) of the software or maybe it is Mac specific. One of the bootable CDs I tried was the Acronis Disk Director Suite 10 rescue media.
Using FDISK under Mac OS X to set the partition active doesn't seem to work, too - the error message still persists!
So I still haven't had success on installing Vista - and the story continues...
EDIT:
It seems that Vista shos up this error message because the partition I want to install it on is not set as active. Therefore I decided to burn a bootable CD with a partition manager which lets me do this, but no chance - both solutions I tried booted well but didn't left my keyboard unusable after booting up. This may be due to lack of USB powered input devices (as neither my mouse nor my trackpad were working, too) of the software or maybe it is Mac specific. One of the bootable CDs I tried was the Acronis Disk Director Suite 10 rescue media.
Using FDISK under Mac OS X to set the partition active doesn't seem to work, too - the error message still persists!
So I still haven't had success on installing Vista - and the story continues...
I was running into the same problem. I question whether this is due to an inactive partition because you can use the installers build-in diskutility to prepare (partition & format) the drive. I have also tried preparing the disk in advance (including an active partition) to no avail.
If you insist on trying this active partition thing, use a Linux Livecd with (g)/(qt)parted or fdisk to activate the partition. I know Knoppix works great for this.
If you insist on trying this active partition thing, use a Linux Livecd with (g)/(qt)parted or fdisk to activate the partition. I know Knoppix works great for this.
Concerning Linux Live distros, I tried it with Kubuntu 7.04 but there is the same problem. It doesn't let me choose the options on the initial screen and loads automatically. Later the keyboard is usable, but nothing happens. The disk stops spinning and all I can do is turn off the computer.
Maybe I should try Knoppix, for it seemed to work for you.
Maybe I should try Knoppix, for it seemed to work for you.
Finally I have done it!
It was a bit of a hassle and there are some problems left to sort out, but here is how I have installed Vista.
First of all I decided to install Windows XP via BootCamp on my MacBook Pro. This went fine, although I had to defrag the hard disk before BootCamp let me partition it.
So, then I installed Acronis Disk Director to change the partition status where I wanted to install Vista on, to 'Active'. It turned out that this wasn't necessary at all since it was already set 'Active'.
Then I did the following: I thought it should be possible to run the Vista installation from within Windows XP, so I started it. Surprisingly, Vista let me install on the desired partition (on my external SATA disk) without any problems, no more error messages, even the Sil 3132 driver was loaded automatically.
During the installation, the system was rebooting several times (which is normal). After the first time I got an error message, so I restarted the machine a second time, manually.
Then, the installation went on. The system rebooted again, this time I inserted my flash drive with rEFIt to choose what to boot. I continued the installation of Vista which still wasn't finished and needed to be completed.
After finishing the installation it rebooted my MBP once again and booted for the first time into the Vista desktop where it crashed like immediately causing another reboot (what a motivating beginning)!
I used rEFIt to choose to boot Vista and this time I got another error message during start up, caused by the Vista boot loader which detected that my HFS+ partitions weren't recognized and supported correctly by Windows. Luckily it continued booting and went right into the Vista desktop, this time without crashing - finally!
So the problems which remain have to do with this Vista boot loader which now always wants me to choose if I want to boot my previously installed Windows XP or Vista. Unfortunately choosing to boot XP causes an ntldr is missing error, though I can still run it through VMWare Fusion (yes, right on my BootCamp partition).
My question is if and how I can get rid of this nasty bootmanager, because it only causes error messages (it seems to be good for nothing)! Even when I am not fast enough (i.e. two seconds) it automatically chooses Vista to boot (which is, of course, resulting in another error message when I want to boot my XP partition under VMWare).
Can I use EasyBCD for this purpose or do I have to remove it under Windows XP? What is needed to be done so that both Operating Systems will still be bootable after all?
It was a bit of a hassle and there are some problems left to sort out, but here is how I have installed Vista.
First of all I decided to install Windows XP via BootCamp on my MacBook Pro. This went fine, although I had to defrag the hard disk before BootCamp let me partition it.
So, then I installed Acronis Disk Director to change the partition status where I wanted to install Vista on, to 'Active'. It turned out that this wasn't necessary at all since it was already set 'Active'.
Then I did the following: I thought it should be possible to run the Vista installation from within Windows XP, so I started it. Surprisingly, Vista let me install on the desired partition (on my external SATA disk) without any problems, no more error messages, even the Sil 3132 driver was loaded automatically.
During the installation, the system was rebooting several times (which is normal). After the first time I got an error message, so I restarted the machine a second time, manually.
Then, the installation went on. The system rebooted again, this time I inserted my flash drive with rEFIt to choose what to boot. I continued the installation of Vista which still wasn't finished and needed to be completed.
After finishing the installation it rebooted my MBP once again and booted for the first time into the Vista desktop where it crashed like immediately causing another reboot (what a motivating beginning)!
I used rEFIt to choose to boot Vista and this time I got another error message during start up, caused by the Vista boot loader which detected that my HFS+ partitions weren't recognized and supported correctly by Windows. Luckily it continued booting and went right into the Vista desktop, this time without crashing - finally!
So the problems which remain have to do with this Vista boot loader which now always wants me to choose if I want to boot my previously installed Windows XP or Vista. Unfortunately choosing to boot XP causes an ntldr is missing error, though I can still run it through VMWare Fusion (yes, right on my BootCamp partition).
My question is if and how I can get rid of this nasty bootmanager, because it only causes error messages (it seems to be good for nothing)! Even when I am not fast enough (i.e. two seconds) it automatically chooses Vista to boot (which is, of course, resulting in another error message when I want to boot my XP partition under VMWare).
Can I use EasyBCD for this purpose or do I have to remove it under Windows XP? What is needed to be done so that both Operating Systems will still be bootable after all?
It's good to hear that you have it working.
I'm not completely sure about this but I would start with EasyBCD.
I'm not completely sure about this but I would start with EasyBCD.
I can confirm this, too. Here is what Disk Utility shows up on my MBP:
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BTW, I have also uploaded the screenshots of the error messages I get during boot-up. It must be due to the HFS+ partition(s). I read that one can get rid of these errors by rebuilding the MBR, though.
BTW, I have also uploaded the screenshots of the error messages I get during boot-up. It must be due to the HFS+ partition(s). I read that one can get rid of these errors by rebuilding the MBR, though.
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Just an FYI for anyone trying this with a new Santa Rosa (SR) MBP. It doesn't seem to work.
The card works in my SR MBP but if I leave it in during boot, the bios starts to load and then just sits there for a long time. Eventually it flips into what looks like 40 column mode with a big cursor, then can't even find the internal hard drive.
If I plug the card in after Windows XP boots, XP can see the card and the hard drive on the eSata card.
I've tried all of the bios versions I can find and none of them work successfully.
I believe it has to do with these new boxes and chipsets and the ability to use 4GB of RAM. The BIOS is probably not able to load itself into ram because of the way the SR MBP's allocate ram. Most machines leave a hole in ram for 3rd party BIOS's to load themselves into RAM but my guess is this has changed in these new SR MBP's.
I'm going to guess this is also something Apple may not fix. We may be SOL'ed.
Oh and I tried this card in my friends 2.33ghz 17" MBP (Pre SR) and it works fine. BIOS flashes by and it detects the hard drive just fine. On mine the BIOS hangs and never detects the hard drive and then eventually can't even see the internal hard drive.
BTW, I have a 17" 2.4ghz MBP Santa Rosa.
It's a little disappointing, but I didn't buy this machine to run other operating systems anyway. It would be an added benefit if I could run more on an eSata card, but since that's not the main purpose, I'm not terribly worried if Apple never fixes it. I'm just letting people know what I've found.
Also, the card works fine in OSX. After OSX boots, I can see the card and the eSata HD just fine. Great speed to the eSata HD too. Much better than USB. Of course, EFI doesn't see the card so I can't actually boot OSX off of any hard drives attached to this card.
The card works in my SR MBP but if I leave it in during boot, the bios starts to load and then just sits there for a long time. Eventually it flips into what looks like 40 column mode with a big cursor, then can't even find the internal hard drive.
If I plug the card in after Windows XP boots, XP can see the card and the hard drive on the eSata card.
I've tried all of the bios versions I can find and none of them work successfully.
I believe it has to do with these new boxes and chipsets and the ability to use 4GB of RAM. The BIOS is probably not able to load itself into ram because of the way the SR MBP's allocate ram. Most machines leave a hole in ram for 3rd party BIOS's to load themselves into RAM but my guess is this has changed in these new SR MBP's.
I'm going to guess this is also something Apple may not fix. We may be SOL'ed.
Oh and I tried this card in my friends 2.33ghz 17" MBP (Pre SR) and it works fine. BIOS flashes by and it detects the hard drive just fine. On mine the BIOS hangs and never detects the hard drive and then eventually can't even see the internal hard drive.
BTW, I have a 17" 2.4ghz MBP Santa Rosa.
It's a little disappointing, but I didn't buy this machine to run other operating systems anyway. It would be an added benefit if I could run more on an eSata card, but since that's not the main purpose, I'm not terribly worried if Apple never fixes it. I'm just letting people know what I've found.
Also, the card works fine in OSX. After OSX boots, I can see the card and the eSata HD just fine. Great speed to the eSata HD too. Much better than USB. Of course, EFI doesn't see the card so I can't actually boot OSX off of any hard drives attached to this card.
I can't say anything about the new SR MBPs, but although it's sure that Apple made some hardware changes to the new MBP you just seem to be out of luck with your ExpressCard. I remember that in the beginning mine didn't work for me either, though I am on a 1st generation MBP C2D. But now, everything just works fine. Sometimes there are some smaller issues like the keyboard not working which is frustrating once in a while, but then booting Vista just works fine. Maybe you should try to update the ExpressCard's BIOS if it isn't already running the latest version (you need to do this on Windows, though). Or how about playing around with rEFIt? I really don't know what trick worked for me in the end, but one day it just worked.
To the colums you mentioned, do these look like on the screenshot I took? I see these columns everytime, but they are not doing anything besides looking weird.
BTW, I could sort out the HFS+ Partition error. All I did was reinstalling XP with BootCamp. Strangely, the error had disappeared afterwards.
Here's the screenshot I was talking about:
Attachments
As I said, I already tried all of the newer and older bios's from SI's website.
I tested this in my friends 17" 2.33 C2D MBP (non Santa Rosa) and it works fine. It's definitely related to the new SR MBP's.
No the screen shot does not look like that. I don't see columns like that, I see it flip to 40 column mode. It's a single blinking 40 column cursor in the upper left corner. Very similar to problems on very old systems I've seen when they can't find the controllers bios, you'd get this 40 column mode and it would possibly even say something like "NO ROM BASIC". Remember that? Anyway this doesn't say that, just a big 40 column cursor, then it can't find any hard drives, not even the internal hard drive.