Help! Tried to install Ubuntu, now OS X won't boot!

[Invizzible]

In case anyone here is interested in how this saga ended, I found my Leopard "Drop In" disc that came with the iMac [came with Tiger installed] and did an archive and install. Didn't help, still wouldn't boot. So I wiped the internal drive and used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my backup back onto the internal drive and fortunately this time CCC worked.

Man, what a pain! Whatever Ubuntu did on my internal drive apparently not only prevented booting to it, but also created a situation where CCC was fooled into thinking it was completing the cloning process but actually wasn't.

Thanks everyone for your help!

 

[r.j.s]

I'm glad you got it sorted out, too bad we weren't much help.

 

[Invizzible]

Well, everyone on here is more fluent with this stuff than I am, so I'm still grateful for all the efforts. It would be nice though to find out what Ubuntu did, and where the trouble making file was residing in OS X.

Yet another lesson on the importance of backing up!

 

[Sentenial]

The same problem

Would just like to let everyone here know that you were all a great help. the instructions helped me get my mac back, however I was an idiot and didn't back up prior to the situation. Instead, since the files were still on my mac, I installed leopard to an external hard drive, imported the files over to that. Then I booted off external drives, did a full wipe of the internal disc including a zero over write. And managed to clone the hard drive onto the macbook. overall a tedious ordeal. Ubuntu should really come with a warning or something.

Anyway, thanks a lot for this forum.

 

[spork183]

Duh, read the threads...

Proving that simply reading the threads prior to messing around would save me time and frustration, I didn't find this until I attempted to install ubuntu (9.04) on an external disk. Make a long story short, same issues. I had just cloned before I started the process, so I'll go back, wipe my internal and superduper back. I tried a clone already, diskwarrior, disk utility, and a rain dance (didn't work, but scared the dog...). Unable to boot to my internal, unable to find my internal.

Important to note, I was installing to an external disk. I never attempted to install anything to my internal. Arrgh.

Ubuntu: obscure word meaning "bend over" in ancient dialect...

I would think Ubuntu development would have been all over this. Issue been around for 5 months based on this thread alone. I really wanted it to be the seamless experience the ubuntu website touted.

 

[Signal-11]

Proving that simply reading the threads prior to messing around would save me time and frustration, I didn't find this until I attempted to install ubuntu (9.04) on an external disk. Make a long story short, same issues. I had just cloned before I started the process, so I'll go back, wipe my internal and superduper back. I tried a clone already, diskwarrior, disk utility, and a rain dance (didn't work, but scared the dog...). Unable to boot to my internal, unable to find my internal.

Important to note, I was installing to an external disk. I never attempted to install anything to my internal. Arrgh.

Ubuntu: obscure word meaning "bend over" in ancient dialect...

I would think Ubuntu development would have been all over this. Issue been around for 5 months based on this thread alone. I really wanted it to be the seamless experience the ubuntu website touted.

Doesn't matter if the disk is external because regardless of where that disk is, the bootloader still has to be on the first thing your computer will look at when it boots, which is your internal. Ubuntu will use grub, unless you tell it specifically not to. What you should have done is looked into different boot loader options.

 

[spork183]

Doesn't matter if the disk is external because regardless of where that disk is, the bootloader still has to be on the first thing your computer will look at when it boots, which is your internal. Ubuntu will use grub, unless you tell it specifically not to. What you should have done is looked into different boot loader options.

hindsight. Point still remains. Touting Ubuntu as simple, hassle free isn't accurate yet. I love the idea of open source, constantly improving, no big corp, etc. But it has to work without having to grub around with grub...

Ubuntu 'Just works'

We've done all the hard work for you. Once Ubuntu is installed, all the basics are in place so that your system will be immediately usable.

 

[K3mp]

In case anyone here is interested in how this saga ended, I found my Leopard "Drop In" disc that came with the iMac [came with Tiger installed] and did an archive and install. Didn't help, still wouldn't boot. So I wiped the internal drive and used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my backup back onto the internal drive and fortunately this time CCC worked.

Man, what a pain! Whatever Ubuntu did on my internal drive apparently not only prevented booting to it, but also created a situation where CCC was fooled into thinking it was completing the cloning process but actually wasn't.

Thanks everyone for your help!

Did you go through the installer or did you run Ubuntu off a live CD?

 

[grady34]

My Solution

I came across this thread after making the exact same mistake -- attempting to install Ubuntu 9.04 on to a USB jump drive (why? boredom i suppose..) and stranding the Mac OS in the process. I'd like to add how I fixed it in case anyone else stumbles upon this thread in the same bind.

I found another post in a different forum but through the haze of panic I can't remember what words I used in google to find it. Unfortunately I (like the OP) was in unfamiliar territory and tried a few things so I'm not sure exactly what did it but here is what I did:

1) Download rEFIt (http://refit.sourceforge.net, version 0.13 at time of this post)

2) Follow the instructions for a manual install (copy the efi folder to the root directory of your internal mac drive, run the script. I did this by opening my drive in Target Disk mode on another mac, which made my drive available for read/write operations.

3) Create a Live CD of rEFIt (burn the .dmg or .cdr file to a CD)

4) Boot from the live CD and run the partitioning tool -- I forget the exact options from here, but I believe I ran some sort of repair utility on the 200MB ext3 boot partition unknowingly installed by Ubuntu and it "synced" it with rEFIt. I'm pretty certain there was only one option after selecting the partitioning tool though, so it should be self-explanatory.

5) Remove the live CD and restart. I was now able to choose between Mac OS X and the Linux distro on my USB

This is where I'm currently at. The poster in the thread I alluded to above was then able to use SuperDuper! to restore his original drive, which actually restored the Darwin boot loader and put things back to normal. I haven't done this step yet (as it is my computer works fine, but after that nightmare of an afternoon I'm inclined to get any traces of Ubuntu off my laptop) but just wanted to throw it out there.

Hope this helps someone!

 

[durija]

Why try Ubuntu? Natural human curiosity. Installing another OS on your Mac is not a sin, neither is it without value. Some specific possible reasons:

1. Your friend is considering buying a computer and wants to know if Ubuntu is a good option. You're nice enough to rig your machine to dual boot so he can. Too bad you didn't know about the live CD option.
2. Your Mac is dying and you can't afford another Mac. You want to try Ubuntu, so you can use cheaper hardware for your next box.
3. A friend has Ubuntu and keeps asking you questions about how things work. It would be easier to know if you could run it yourself.
4. You want to step a toe into the Linux river, since it runs on the vast majority of the world's web servers and many business servers.

Put a warning on Ubuntu? Better to put a warning on all computers and operating systems. Nobody, except Apple with its Boot Camp, designs their OS to easily dual-boot. Some knowledge of the boot-loader situation is mandatory, and it's by no means intuitive. You have to do the research. People screw up their systems all the time trying this...on Macs, Windows and Linux boxes. The number of ways to make it happen is almost endless. It's actually easier with Linux and Grub in many ways, but you have to know what you're doing before you go around partitioning drives!

 

[chrono1081]

Wow this is really weird. I installed Linux no problem on my mac. Its Ubuntu too. (Although I would have liked RedHat )

Ubuntu is actually pretty nice. Linux hardcores don't like it but its pretty convenient and great for dabbling and learning linux. It's great to see all the software that the open source community has come up with. I wouldn't give up on it just yet. Ubuntu is the OS I run on my eeePC and its great.


I will say however OSX is my favorite OS

 

[2112]

Same problem here, now with Ubuntu 9.10. I'm finishing the internal drive's backup before I go ahead and mess with rEFIt.

What I still don't fully understand:
does rEFIt fix whatever causes the problem (and can then be removed) ?
or
it needs to stay there to be able to select the boot drive ? (and if removed, you're back to square one)

thanks anyone

 

[msjones]

Same problem here, now with Ubuntu 9.10. I'm finishing the internal drive's backup before I go ahead and mess with rEFIt.

What I still don't fully understand:
does rEFIt fix whatever causes the problem (and can then be removed) ?
or
it needs to stay there to be able to select the boot drive ? (and if removed, you're back to square one)

thanks anyone

Last time I used refit it was easy to remove:

http://refit.sourceforge.net/doc/c1s3_remove.html

If you a wary of installing just hold the command key down on boot and select your partition.

 

[2112]

Solved

Summary:

1. Tried playing with Ubuntu, installing it on an external USB drive. Didn't boot.
2. Tried booting back to OS X installed on the internal drive, didn't boot either.
- Internal drive didn't show on the boot selection menu (pressing the 'option' key while booting).
- Showed fine on the Startup Disk preference pane. If selected, it wouldn't boot (meaning that "re-blessing" it didn't work).
- Booting from a fresh OS X installed on another external drive, the internal HDD mounted perfectly, all files readable.
3. Cloned the internal drive to an external one using Disk Utility's "Restore" function.
- Booted and worked perfectly, all files there.



First I tried a backward restore, that is, from the external drive with the working OS, back into the internal drive, using the "Erase Destination" option.
- I assumed that by erasing the destination volume, whatever issue I had would be solved.
- This didn't work, the computer wouldn't boot using the internal drive.

The only step left was to repartition de drive, in other words, erase the partition map and create a new one.

So I figured, just before doing that, I would resize the partition. That -should- rewrite the partition map with fresh data.
- Using Disk Utility, I selected the internal drive and reduced the partition size (any size will do). No problems here.
- Then I resized it back to it's maximum size. No problems either, Disk Utility didn't complain.
This worked, now the computer boots from the internal drive again.

Final Notes:
- All this was done with Snow Leopard's Disk Utility that supports partition resizing without data loss.
- Bootcamp assistant can resize partitions, however it wouldn't work since it requires you to boot from the internal drive.
- You can resize partitions nondestructively using the CLI from 10.4.6 onwards using the diskutil resizeVolume command.
- Leopard's Disk Utility GUI allows resizing, however the drive's partition scheme can't be MBR.

Hope it helps. Cheers !

 

[Tofer]

I stumbled upon this thread after I made the same mistake. I discovered a very easy fix, but it requires either the OS X install disc, or an external, bootable OS X disk:

Run Disk Utility
Click on your internal hard disk (the disk itself, not the partition under it). Then click on the Partition tab. If you move the triangular slider that adjusts the partition up and then back to where it was, the "Apply" button becomes active (it starts greyed out). You can now click "Apply," and the partition will be left alone but the Darwin (original) bootloader will be recreated. When I did it, a window popped up that said, "Are you sure you want to partition the disk? Partitioning this disk will change some of the partitions. No partitions will be erased." If you get a message that partitions will be erased, I'd look into it more before going ahead.

I was surprised that this worked, but when I rebooted, the computer booted straight into OS X from the internal drive.

 

[brandonpturner]

I stumbled upon this thread after I made the same mistake. I discovered a very easy fix, but it requires either the OS X install disc, or an external, bootable OS X disk:

Run Disk Utility
Click on your internal hard disk (the disk itself, not the partition under it). Then click on the Partition tab. If you move the triangular slider that adjusts the partition up and then back to where it was, the "Apply" button becomes active (it starts greyed out). You can now click "Apply," and the partition will be left alone but the Darwin (original) bootloader will be recreated. When I did it, a window popped up that said, "Are you sure you want to partition the disk? Partitioning this disk will change some of the partitions. No partitions will be erased." If you get a message that partitions will be erased, I'd look into it more before going ahead.

I was surprised that this worked, but when I rebooted, the computer booted straight into OS X from the internal drive.

THIS WAS THE FIX! I cannot thank you enough for this. I had Ubuntu installed on a second internal drive. I just created another partition on the primary drive, it rewrote the bootloader, and I was able to log back into OSX. Aside from now having an unnecessary partition on my drive, it worked!!

Time to update Time Machine, and kill that extra partition.

 

[pcs are junk]

macs are not like pcs, if u want to screw around with ubuntu, use a pc, a piece of junk, not a wonderful mac. what happens is, the bootloader for macs, Darwin, cannot be changed whatsoever. now what happens is when u install ubuntu, it installs a bootloader called GRUB. now u can not boot into any of them, because Darwin is trying to boot directly into Mac OS X, or Ubuntu, but there is a bootloader blocking it, sort of like a firewall that wont let u boot. now u have lost all your information, and u need to partition ur hard drive with the install cd, try installing os x again, or restoring from a backup. now if that doesnt work go to the apple store and tell them everything u did, and everything i told u to do. im sorry to say, but u should have checked with us about installing ubuntu on a mac. anyways, good luck.