Re: grub-probe fails to find PC partition due to Apple disklabel

[Chris Knadle]

On Monday 28 July 2008, Felix Zielcke wrote:
> Am Montag, den 28.07.2008, 14:41 -0400 schrieb Chris Knadle:
> >    However on the last test I did make an error and left out the -d
> > option to grub-probe, and that's required for the grub-probe to succeed,
> > so unfortunately the output I posted is erroneous.
> >    A new one is attached which has Robert's patch applied -- it does
> > succeed in finding the partition, but unfortunately we can't fix the
> > problem this way because I believe it makes Apple partition detection
> > *always* fail.
>
> Urgs, yeah didn't see that.
> You have to use -d if you give a device.
> Why do you think that with this it will always fail?

   Because the test that the patch does is to check for an HFS+ filesystem 
magic number against the first 2 bytes on the drive, which contains a jump 
vector for the Grub stage1 binary.  i.e. in order for the test to pass, Grub 
has to be unbootable.

> Maybe you can try this out? :)

   I normally don't run Apple machines.  I have an old 400MHz iMac G3 (the 
type that is housed inside of a monitor) available to me, but replacing the 
hard disk requires a somewhat messy disassembly effort.  I also have an 
external Firewire enclosure I could theoretically try this with, but I don't 
know how I'd get the G3 to attempt to boot on it.
   I'd much rather be looking at C code than spending the next two days 
futzing with an old Apple box.  :-/

   -- Chris

-- 

Chris Knadle
address@hidden