Ubuntu Killed My MacBook?

I have a prev gen macbook (non unibody), that came with Leopard 10.5.

I bought the Snow Leopard 10.6 ugprade, and i installed it.

All was fine. No problems. Restarted many times.

Today i had to burn a copy of Ubuntu 9.10.

I burned it, and restarted the macbook to test the burn.

I turned on with the C key, and ubuntu started. It asked for language, and then if if i wanted to try or install.

I choose try, and it go on to start, but the macbook would hang.

So i turned off, and then on, expecting to see OSX 10.6 again.

The macbook started loading, and then the NO/Forbidden sign.

I tried to boot using again C key with the snow leopard 10.6 upgrade DVD, but the Macbook would try to boot from the DVD, and then same problem as above (forbidden sign).

I then tried to boot with the Leopard 10.5 install DVD, but again, and again forbidden sign.

I tried the apple-option-p-r to reset the mac, and then i tried to boot again with Leopard install dvd, and same problem.

I tried booting with D key, but nothing happens (meaning it tries to boot from the HD, instead from the DVD).

I tried to boot again with ubuntu, and it starts and then hungs.

I booted on verbose mode, and more or less this is all i see (edited):

...
Waiting on dict id=0 ioproviderclass string id=1 ioresourcematch string id =2 boot-uuid-media
...
the iousbfamilly is having trouble enumerating a usb device that has been plugged in it will keep retrying port 4 of hub @ location 0x24000000
...
still waiting for toot device
...
the iousbfanumly was not able to numerate the device

Any ideas? I have no accessories connected to my macbook.

You have tried the 2 suggestions that came to me when I read your post. Do you have the OSX 10.5 DVD that the Macbook came with? If so try booting from that with the C key down after the startup sound.

Yes already did that ("I then tried to boot with the Leopard install DVD, but again, i can not boot from it.")

i booted on verbose mode, and more or less this is all i see (edited):

...
Waiting on dict id=0 ioproviderclass string id=1 ioresourcematch string id =2 boot-uuid-media
...
the iousbfamilly is having trouble enumerating a usb device that has been plugged in it will keep retrying port 4 of hub @ location 0x24000000
...
still waiting for toot device
...
the iousbfanumly was not able to numerate the device
...

What do you have plugged in through USB? If you have anything, unplug all USB devices.

Nothing on USB. No accesories.

Ubuntu 9.10 killed your Boot Loader. What has probably happened is that a copy of GRUB is now trying to boot your machine and can not. Take note of the following hint and procedure from another forum to see if it will work for you. It's rather long so you might want to print it out and follow along that way:

Fri, Nov 20 2009 at 7:30AM PST • Contributed by: tofergregg

If your bootloader gets changed or corrupted, this fix will restore it without damage to your disk partitions.

This hint may be a bit esoteric, but I thought I was up for a long night of reinstallation pain before stumbling upon this fix. I made the mistake of trying to use an Ubuntu 9.04 boot CD to install Ubuntu to an external (USB) drive on my Mac.

Don't do this, unless you know the following: Regardless of the fact that you chose the external drive upon which to install Ubuntu, you won't be able to boot back into your Mac without changing the bootloader. I ended up with the dreaded question mark folder when I tried to reboot my Mac, and nothing worked to boot into my OS X partition.

Luckily, I have a bootable external drive with OS X on it, and I was able to boot into it by holding down the Option key (the primary partition still did not show up).

I started searching online for the fix, and it seems that Ubuntu changes the Darwin (default) bootloader to Grub on your internal disk, and OS X won't use it (at least not by default). The fixes listed were kludgy, and amounted to either installing another third party bootloader (called "rEFIt") or completely wiping your internal drive and reinstalling OS X (even a standard install won't work).

Anyway, the fix turned out to be easy with Disk Utility (and probably possible from the OS X boot disc). Run Disk Utility and 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 bootloader will be recreated.

When I did this, 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.

End of hint

Let us know if this works for you.

Regards.

I won't pretend to understand that error message as they are frequently cryptic but I did a little research and found this.

I mentioned the USB issue but realize that it says "port 4" which doesn't make much sense since your MB won't have 4 USB ports (at least). I'm going to let someone a little more knowledgeable with the innards of OS X jump in.

chscag said:

Ubuntu 9.10 killed your Boot Loader. What has probably happened is that a copy of GRUB is now trying to boot your machine and can not.

Click to expand...

Grub should not be the issue at all since he just chose to try it. If he had chosen install, this might be an issue.

I also don't think GRUB is the problem, cause if it was, at least i should be able to boot into 10.5 dvd installer, right?

Also, is it possible to try to boot a DVD in verbose mode? Can i convine V and C?

kwanbis said:

I turned on with the C key, and ubuntu started. It asked for language, and then if if i wanted to try or install.

I choose try, and it go on to start, but the macbook would hang.

Click to expand...

I also took it wrong and thought you hit install. Sorry.

kwanbis said:

Also, is it possible to try to boot a DVD in verbose mode? Can i convine V and C?

Click to expand...

Never tried either with the OSX DVD.

Keep us posted.

It's obvious your EFI boot loader is not working. Whether GRUB got installed or not doesn't matter.... It's true that "Trying out Ubuntu" is not the same as installing it but I've seen strange things happen when "trying" out Ubuntu on an OS X system.

If you don't want to pursue the hint I posted, then I suggest you post your problem in the Ubuntu forum and see if someone there with a similar experience can help you out. Here's a LINK.

Let us know.

Regards.

chscag, i appreciate you comments. Now, my question is, if that was true, and i wanted to install 10.5 from scratch, i should be able to boot from the DVD, no matter what is on the HDD/partition/boot sector, isn't it? Besides, how do i get to the disk utility tool, if i can not boot from DVD and i don't have an external hdd with OSX?

Try this, Hold OPTION down right after or at the Startup Sound. See if a Boot choices menu comes up with the OSX DVD on it. If so select it and hit the arrow.

Did that. The hdd and the dvd appeared, i double clicked on the dvd, and it started reading!

Now i'm at disk utilites, doing a verification.

While in Disk Utility do check the partition info that chscag mentioned just in case something strange happened.

chscag said:

Anyway, the fix turned out to be easy with Disk Utility (and probably possible from the OS X boot disc). Run Disk Utility and 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 bootloader will be recreated.

Click to expand...

It worked!!!!!!!!!!!

Now i wonder, why pressing C, or even D, during boot would not start the installer dvd like doing the ALT/option trick did?

kwanbis said:

It worked!!!!!!!!!!!

Now i wonder, why pressing C, or even D, during boot would not start the installer dvd like doing the ALT/option trick did?

Click to expand...

Yeah, it makes me wonder why it didn't... ?? Anyway, it does appear that the EFI boot loader was overwritten by Ubuntu. Glad you got it repaired with the hint. Happiness is booting up to OS X!

I've seen some real strange problems that have occurred by either installing or trying out Ubuntu. The only safe way to try Ubuntu out is on an external hard drive. Then you can deal with the external several ways rather than have to deal with re-creating the EFI boot loader.

Have fun.

Regards.

chscag said:

Yeah, it makes me wonder why it didn't... ?? Anyway, it does appear that the EFI boot loader was overwritten by Ubuntu. Glad you got it repaired with the hint. Happiness is booting up to OS X!

Click to expand...

Credit is due where credit is due. Well done chscag. I would have assumed (naturally) that trying out Ubuntu would have caused no issues.

I am also confused by the C key not booting the DVD but Option did do the trick, so I am happy at least the computer is now working again for the OP. I was pretty sure what Chscag was saying was the issue because the symptoms sure seemed to say that the Bootloader was messed with.

In the end I am glad it's up and running!

I am for sure going to file away Chscag's post into my memory for future usage helping people and even helping myself!

And Van, I agree, I would never think that just trying Ubuntu, Open Suse, ETC from the CD would ever cause this issue. I will have to remember to be careful in the future as I am always trying Live CD's of Linux before installing.

I'm gonna check on ubuntuforums, to see if they have any idea, cause booting the livecd, should touch nothing.

So it looks like if i want to boot from a CD/DVD, alt/command is the best way.

You could also use a VM to test out Linux distros. In that instance, there will be no issues with your bootloader regardless of whether you just try or you install it.