[holmes4]

This was mentioned in passing in the NBI development thread, but I'm putting it here for further discussion.

As several of us have noted, if you run NBI and ask it to (re)install Chameleon, then if you had been using EasyBCD to do the boot select you're greeted with this when you try to reboot Mac OS:

Windows failed to start...

File: \NST\nst_mac.mbr
Status: 0xc000000e
Info: The selected entry could not be loaded because the application is missing or corrupt.

A similar message greets you if you try to boot Windows. Running the Windows "repair" allows you to boot into Windows and then you can rerun EasyBCD and fix up the entries.

It would be nice if this annoyance could be avoided in the future.

---------- Post added at 06:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:20 PM ----------

A sidenote - I decided to see if I could put the Windows recovery CD on a bootable USB stick and use that. Well, yes, I could, but when it does the repair it evidently decides to write the MBR to the USB stick - or something like that - so that the USB stick is required in order to boot at all. Not what I had in mind....

[dude245]

Just boot into the w7 install disk, selct your windows partiton,make it active, repair my computer, restart, select partition 3 (or 4), mark as active. Chemilion should be able to boot both

[mechdrew]

It's not just EasyBCD, I use Chameleon alone and can't get my install to repair with the DVD. (And I found out about the nasty little USB boot thing.) I'm trying to figure this out myself. At least my XP still works...

[minimalpc]

Originally Posted by holmes4

A sidenote - I decided to see if I could put the Windows recovery CD on a bootable USB stick and use that. Well, yes, I could, but when it does the repair it evidently decides to write the MBR to the USB stick - or something like that - so that the USB stick is required in order to boot at all. Not what I had in mind....

When that happens, you can fix the USB stick by renaming \boot\BCD.backup.001 to \boot\BCD. Doing the repair again will get Windows booting again. If you remove the stick after you click "repair" but before you click to confirm, I think it will keep the USB stick from getting screwed up.

I think it would be instructive to try to manually fix Windows through the repair console by running fixboot. If that doesn't work, then fixmbr. I believe the automated repair is doing one or both of those and knowing which one works will help diagnose what Chameleon is doing that causes the issue in the first place.

---------- Post added at 01:46 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:44 AM ----------

Originally Posted by mechdrew

It's not just EasyBCD, I use Chameleon alone and can't get my install to repair with the DVD. (And I found out about the nasty little USB boot thing.) I'm trying to figure this out myself. At least my XP still works...

FWIW, if Windows diskpart is saying something about operation not being permitted on a non-fixed HDD, you need to run gptsync again. Been there, done that.

[mechdrew]

Originally Posted by minimalpc

FWIW, if Windows diskpart is saying something about operation not being permitted on a non-fixed HDD, you need to run gptsync again. Been there, done that.

That'd be great, except I'm not running on GUID. I'm MBR all the way, baby!

EDIT: Found the fix. It was stupid.

You need to open the command prompt instead of trying to repair. Type "diskpart", then you can select your hard drive (" select disk 0") and then the Windows 7 parition ("select partition 3" for me). Make it "active" (that's the command), then minimize the window and select the repair option. Once repair is finished, make your OS X partition active (if you use Chameleon like I do, "select parition 2" and "active" in my case) by going back to the command prompt. Then restart and it should be good to go. (You can type "list" at anytime to get the numbers for the drives and the partitions.) I'm typing this from my repaired Windows 7.

[holmes4]

That's good to know - but it would be even better if there was an option or smarts in NBI to not make this necessary each time.

[HotDog]

It sounds like you guys use Windows quite a bit, and it seems like every time there is an update it requires some major gymnastics with Windows to get it running again. I've been running XP in VirtualBox over SL. Seems to be fine, is quite snappy, really, and goes along with the update flow with no problems. I finally gave up on the dual boot try mostly for the reason cited above. VB seems to be one decent answer, any may prove to be the way of the future for most OSes.

[holmes4]

I use Windows more than I use OS X. There are no "major gymnastics" involved - just undoing the "damage" that NBI did.

[bsoplinger1]

The trouble is that NBI is rewriting the MBR boot partition when you choose install Chameleon. And so far each release of NBI has an updated Chameleon so you need to install Chameleon each time. This ends up wiping out the BCD info in the MBR. So you have to do the Win install disc, change partition, repair, boot, re-install EasyBCD each time. No way around it.

Perhaps NBI could get smarts added to it and not rewrite the MBR when installing Chameleon if its magic is already there. But I have idea of exactly the workings of Windows BCD and exactly what Easy BCD does and what changes end up happening to the MBR when you use it. So I have no idea if those changes make the initial boot info in the MBR that makes OS X work is in danger of being changed so would make the checking for changes even harder. (Talk about a convoluted sentence, but hopefully it conveys my meaning)

Also for the why EasyBCD vs Chameleon issue, Hibenation works consistently for Windows when you use EasyBCD and is iffy with Chameleon and only works for OS X.

This also implies a warning. Do NOT update Chameleon if you've hibernated your Windows or you will loose all that work when the MBR is updated by NBI. In case anyone didn't realize that.

And it gets all the more complicated if you're using GUID vs MBR partitioning with the fake MBR partition.

[Scooter70]

Originally Posted by minimalpc

When that happens, you can fix the USB stick by renaming \boot\BCD.backup.001 to \boot\BCD. Doing the repair again will get Windows booting again. If you remove the stick after you click "repair" but before you click to confirm, I think it will keep the USB stick from getting screwed up.

Thanks for this info. I kept having to go re-format and re-make my install drive every time the Repair killed it. I also figured out that you can make the BCD files on your USB drive read-only so that repair can't mess with them.