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Restore default bootloader without harming partitions
Authored by: huggybearikf on Nov 22, '09 04:37:19PM

I'm having the exact problem as you describe it, but when I go to disk utility, and select the volume, it only shows one disk partition, the one that I tried to boot windows on, and not my original partition, and I can't wiggle the little arrow thing like you described. The partition that shows up is only a fraction of my hard disk memory, but if, instead of "current", I select multiple partitions, then my full memory shows up. How do I reboot back into Mac OS X??



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Restore default bootloader without harming partitions
Authored by: koooldawg on Dec 15, '09 10:00:43PM

I just was tinkering with Ubuntu 9.10, trying to install on a USB hard drive. It was successful, but could no longer boot OS X. I found this, but I couldn't change partitions in DiskUtil. Then I remembered that OS X is based off Unix/BSD. Looked up the manuals for fdisk. Used it from command terminal from OS X install DVD.

fdisk -u /dev/disk0

fdisk here is very similar to the DOS fdisk program, just designed for UNIX
the -u tells it to update MBR without modifying partitions
/dev/disk0 is the hard drive. yours may differ, but i doubt it

This fixed my problem.

Long story short, yes you can do it easily from command line, just boot your install DVD. In terminal, type the command listed above.



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