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Mac OS X Mountain Lion and Windows 7 dual boot problem

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I did the same thing and when booting from the USB I can boot to Windows or Mountain Lion.
The Problem is that after I install Chimera (using MultiBeast) and boot from the hard drive, it will just default straight into Windows without bringing up the boot loader menu.
Is there some way to force the partition with Mountain Lion to be the default or to change the boot loader order to boot Chimera before Windows?
 
I did the same thing and when booting from the USB I can boot to Windows or Mountain Lion.
The Problem is that after I install Chimera (using MultiBeast) and boot from the hard drive, it will just default straight into Windows without bringing up the boot loader menu.
Is there some way to force the partition with Mountain Lion to be the default or to change the boot loader order to boot Chimera before Windows?

Press space and you'll get the menu. You can use Chameleon Wizard to change the timeout, or turn on Instant Menu... All it does is set the various options in /Extra/org.chameleon.Boot.plist for you.
 
I should have specified that I did not use Chameleon in my set-up. As far as I understand, Chimera is used as the boot-loader.
Should I be installing Chameleon to resolve this issue?

EDIT: I just tried multibeast using the "UserDSDT or DSDT-Free installation" without a DSDT file on my system - the same behavior persists (and I believe that installs Chameleon)

I tried space bar when booting, but it still just goes straight into Windows.

EDIT 2: I used the chameleon wizard to re-install it using the first option Boot0hfs... still straight to Windows :(

Do I need to somehow install chameleon on the Windows partition (which seems to be the active/system partition)?
 
I should have specified that I did not use Chameleon in my set-up. As far as I understand, Chimera is used as the boot-loader.
Should I be installing Chameleon to resolve this issue?

EDIT: I just tried multibeast using the "UserDSDT or DSDT-Free installation" without a DSDT file on my system - the same behavior persists (and I believe that installs Chameleon)

I tried space bar when booting, but it still just goes straight into Windows.

EDIT 2: I used the chameleon wizard to re-install it using the first option Boot0hfs... still straight to Windows :(

Do I need to somehow install chameleon on the Windows partition (which seems to be the active/system partition)?

Need more information on your partitions/disks. Maybe output from these commands to get started:
Code:
# in Terminal
diskutil list
# fdisk for each /dev/rdisk#, depending on how many disks you have
sudo fdisk /dev/rdisk0
sudo fdisk /dev/rdisk1
# etc

Chimera is just a Chameleon branch, thus why you can use Chameleon Wizard to change config...
 
Need more information on your partitions/disks. Maybe output from these commands to get started:
Code:
# in Terminal
diskutil list
# fdisk for each /dev/rdisk#, depending on how many disks you have
sudo fdisk /dev/rdisk0
sudo fdisk /dev/rdisk1
# etc

Chimera is just a Chameleon branch, thus why you can use Chameleon Wizard to change config...

I pooched my windows installation trying to set up Chameleon in Windows... looks like I am going to have to start again from scratch :(
Found this guide which I think may be of some help:
http://lifehacker.com/5698205/how-to-triple-boot-your-hackintosh-with-windows-and-linux

Specifically the section that says:
When Windows installs, it makes itself the active partition on your computer, which means when you restart, your computer will just boot you into Windows as if OS X and Linux weren't even there. We want the active partition to be our OS X partition, since it contains Chameleon, which lets us choose between the OSes when we start off. To pry Windows' greedy hands off your hard drive, just open up the start menu, right-click on Computer, and hit the Manage button.

I had tried previously do to that using Hiren's boot CD partition table editor (old DOS tool) and I saw an error message (I dont remember what it was) so I just set the Windows partition to be active again... I tried a clean ML install and saw this "Boot0 Error" message, and now I figure that was the error message I was seeing before...
http://www.tonymacx86.com/25-boot0-error-official-guide.html

SO - I think that I should have a solution.
If that doesnt work, ill post back here and we can start to dig into the issue further.

Thanks for the help so far!

... its gonna be a long night :)
 
I pooched my windows installation trying to set up Chameleon in Windows... looks like I am going to have to start again from scratch :(
Found this guide which I think may be of some help:
http://lifehacker.com/5698205/how-to-triple-boot-your-hackintosh-with-windows-and-linux

Specifically the section that says:


I had tried previously do to that using Hiren's boot CD partition table editor (old DOS tool) and I saw an error message (I dont remember what it was) so I just set the Windows partition to be active again... I tried a clean ML install and saw this "Boot0 Error" message, and now I figure that was the error message I was seeing before...
http://www.tonymacx86.com/25-boot0-error-official-guide.html

SO - I think that I should have a solution.
If that doesnt work, ill post back here and we can start to dig into the issue further.

Thanks for the help so far!

... its gonna be a long night :)

Since you're doing a fresh install, you might refer to my blog (see signature). I wrote a guide for doing a quad-boot Linux/Win7/Win8/Ubuntu on one HDD. You don't need everything there, but there is a lot of good information you might find useful.

And the article you quote is certainly out-of-date... if not wrong. Chameleon/Chimera can be used in a multi-boot environment with Windows as the active partition (in fact that is preferred as Windows likes it that way). They are under the assumption that boot0 is the only Chimera stage0 boot record, when in fact, there is boot0hfs as well as boot0md (now preferred) which doesn't have the limitation of OS X partition being active...

Finally, you want to stay away from editing partitions with anything that looks at only the MBR tables (Windows, DOS, fdisk, etc). This is because when you create a GPT partition map in Disk Utility, you actually end up with a GPT/MBR hybrid. Hybrids have both an MBR and GPT table that must remain in sync -- so edits have to be reflected in both. Disk Utility does this automatically. The other option is to edit the GPT side with something like Linux gparted (it will delete the MBR table, creating a pure GPT), then run gptsync or gdisk to re-create the MBR hybrid.
 
Since you're doing a fresh install, you might refer to my blog (see signature). I wrote a guide for doing a quad-boot Linux/Win7/Win8/Ubuntu on one HDD. You don't need everything there, but there is a lot of good information you might find useful.

And the article you quote is certainly out-of-date... if not wrong. Chameleon/Chimera can be used in a multi-boot environment with Windows as the active partition (in fact that is preferred as Windows likes it that way). They are under the assumption that boot0 is the only Chimera stage0 boot record, when in fact, there is boot0hfs as well as boot0md (now preferred) which doesn't have the limitation of OS X partition being active...

Finally, you want to stay away from editing partitions with anything that looks at only the MBR tables (Windows, DOS, fdisk, etc). This is because when you create a GPT partition map in Disk Utility, you actually end up with a GPT/MBR hybrid. Hybrids have both an MBR and GPT table that must remain in sync -- so edits have to be reflected in both. Disk Utility does this automatically. The other option is to edit the GPT side with something like Linux gparted (it will delete the MBR table, creating a pure GPT), then run gptsync or gdisk to re-create the MBR hybrid.


Truth be told, your blog is what inspired me to all this madness - I was planning on just installing ML and being done with it!
The core guide I used was your blog, but I just installed Win8 and ML.
There is no part of the guide that would help me resolve this problem, and hence I am here on the forum.

SO - when you say " Disk Utility does this automatically. The other option is to edit the GPT side with something like Linux gparted (it will delete the MBR table, creating a pure GPT), then run gptsync or gdisk to re-create the MBR hybrid. " are you saying that setting the active partition in the Disk Utility to the ML partition "should" in theory solve my problem? or are you suggesting something else?
 
Truth be told, your blog is what inspired me to all this madness - I was planning on just installing ML and being done with it!
The core guide I used was your blog, but I just installed Win8 and ML.
There is no part of the guide that would help me resolve this problem, and hence I am here on the forum.

SO - when you say " Disk Utility does this automatically. The other option is to edit the GPT side with something like Linux gparted (it will delete the MBR table, creating a pure GPT), then run gptsync or gdisk to re-create the MBR hybrid. " are you saying that setting the active partition in the Disk Utility to the ML partition "should" in theory solve my problem? or are you suggesting something else?

I don't think Disk Utility has the ability to set the active partition. In fact, "active partition" is more of a MBR specific thing. GPT has the same but I think they call it "boot" -or "bootable" and there can be more than one (where in MBR there is usually only one marked active).

If you follow my blog guide and just do the parts for Win8 and ML, you should be fine (doing a dual-boot is massively simple, really)...

One thing that is a possibility, since I've never done an install with only Win8 (I've always had Win7 there first), is maybe Chimera is refusing to install the boot record. For some unknown reason, the Chimera installer checks for certain boot record signatures before overwriting the boot record. For example, it will not overwrite a boot record for grub. Seems silly to me, since we are asking to install Chimera, so I can't quite figure out why it would choose to not install an important component... but... that's what it does, you can read it yourself by looking at the shell script in the installer pkg. Note that I don't really think this is the case, because I'm pretty sure Win8 installs its boot record over the Win7 boot record, and I know in that case, that the Chimera installer will overwrite it.

That said, maybe there is something about the Win8 boot loader that keeps it from overwriting. If that is the case, you can force install the boot record with this command in OS X terminal from your ML install:
Code:
# substitute rdisk0 for the actual disk that is your boot disk
sudo usr/sbin/fdisk440 -f /usr/standalone/i386/boot0md -u -y /dev/rdisk0

One other thing could be tripping you up. It could be that you did a UEFI install of Win8. This is to be avoided because the BIOS will just skip over a BIOS boot (ignoring the boot record) and boot Win8 directly, and Chimera cannot boot such an install of Win8 anyway (it needs Windows to be configured for BIOS boot). You will get a UEFI install of Win8 if you used UEFI to boot the Win8 install media (whether it be a DVD or USB flash). To make sure you don't do that, disable UEFI before installing Win8.
 
One other thing could be tripping you up. It could be that you did a UEFI install of Win8. This is to be avoided because the BIOS will just skip over a BIOS boot (ignoring the boot record) and boot Win8 directly, and Chimera cannot boot such an install of Win8 anyway (it needs Windows to be configured for BIOS boot). You will get a UEFI install of Win8 if you used UEFI to boot the Win8 install media (whether it be a DVD or USB flash). To make sure you don't do that, disable UEFI before installing Win8.

I didnt do a UEFI install of Win8... I was hoping that was the issue this whole time and that I would be able to change the priority of the .efi files and everything would be good. My motherboard actually doesnt support UEFI, so that cant be the problem.

Ill give it a shot one more time and see what happens, and then ill try that command to force the boot record.

I followed the guide as follows last time:
1) Set up Win8 partition, Swap partition, ML Partition (in that order)
2) Boot to Ubuntu and re-format Win8 as NTFS and use gptsync on the drive
3) Go to Win8 install, Format the Win8 partition and install
4) Install ML
5) Use MultiBeast to install what I need to install

At that point, the system would just boot to Win8...
 
Turns out it was the "boot0: error" all along.
I guess if it tried to use Chimera/Chameleon on my HD this error would occur, and because it went by so quick, I guess it just defaulted to the Windows boot loader.
I followed the instructions here: http://www.tonymacx86.com/25-boot0-error-official-guide.html
Using the command dd if=/Volumes/OSX/usr/standalone/i386/boot1h of=/dev/disk0s3

And lo-and-behold when I booted the Chimera boot screen came up.

Now its time to configure my system - thanks for all the support and that awesome guide!

+ adding this to your guide might be useful; the description on the page with the boot0 error seems to indicate it may happen on all drives 500GB or greater
 
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