MacBook Pro problem when you fresh install

Windows 7 launched on October 22nd and that's about the time I got my 64-bit copy. First thing I wanted to do was install it on my MacBook Pro. I started up Bootcamp and began to repartition. I ran into a problem partitioning more than 40gb volume. I started researching the issue and it turns out that due to fragmentation, it won't allow for larger space. Yes Macs also suffer from fragmentation! I had two options, purchase software to defrag the hard drive or do a fresh install of Snow Leopard. I opted out for #2. I erased my drive, formatted it and within an hour I had a brand new installation. Then I restored from Time Machine backup and my machine went back to the exact way it was when I began, minus the fragmentation. I must say that Time Machine is an amazing piece of technology, even though I've heard otherwise. I created a few partitions, one for Windows, one for Ubuntu 9.10 (coming shortly today!!!) and one for Data (partition formatted in FAT, accessible by all three). One thing led to another and it didn't work out too well for me. I decided to reinstall again and just stay with Mac OSX and Windows in Bootcamp. At this point fresh install started failing. I tried every which way to reinstall but was not able to. I even deleted the whole OS and installed Windows exclusively. I looked in the error log and message was that installation was unable to bless the disk and boot from it. Then I started researching again and found out that sometimes Intel Macs's PRAM get corrupted. Symptoms were similar to mine so I decided to try. To reset the PRAM you have to hold "Command + Option + P + R" together at boot-up, before the chime and continue holding until Mac restarts. After 2nd chime, your PRAM is reset. I tried that and it worked. Then I reinstalled the Mac and what do you know, I was able to reinstall! I am restoring from the backup as we speak.

Other good things to know:

force CD to eject command: "turn off the Mac, hold the power key for 10 seconds and when you hear chime, hold the trackpad until CD ejects".

boot from CD: "put CD in, reboot, hold "C".

That's that, happy hacking and Happy Ubuntu Day!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vista Vulnerability Report mentions Ubuntu 6.06 LTS

Update: I posted this on MIXX since DIGG was taken care of by someone already, except that that user didn't really write a good preview for it so it got buried. This report is generating some buzz though. I emailed this report to Mark Shuttleworth of Ubuntu fame and little did I know, HE ANSWERED!!!! Whoever answered me on that side of the e-mail pipe liked the report and was wondering if it was official and whether he could quote from it. It definitely is official and I forwarded him the e-mail with this report, he said he will pass it down internally. That made my day, it's amazing that a man of his statute, that's if it was him, answers e-mails from regular people like me. That's what I call a real genuine pioneer! Thank you Mark and all of the Ubuntu Staff. Read
Read more

Running CockroachDB with Docker Compose and Minio, Part 2

This is my second post on creating a multi-service architecture with docker-compose. This is meant to be a learning exercise and typically docker-compose is used to set up a local development environment rather than a production-ready set up. I regularly, find myself building these environments to reproduce customer bugs. For a production-specific application, refer to your platform vendor documentation. At some later time, I will cover Kubernetes deployments that can be used as a stepping stone for a real-world application. Until then, let's focus on the task at hand. We're building a microservice architecture with CockroachDB writing changes in real-time to an S3 bucket in JSON format. S3 bucket is served by a service called Minio. It can act like an S3 appliance on premise or serve as a local gateway to your cloud storage. Let's dig in:
Read more

Doing "print screen" on a Mac is a pain in the ass

I am catching up with blogging today and I need to take a screenshot of my screen. I have a Macbook Pro with Ubuntu in a virtual machine. There is no printscreen button and a quick search returned "Apple + Shift + 3". Mac fanboys think that's easy and better than PC? So here's a problem. If you want to take a print screen in VM, that key combination doesn't work. What do I do besides opening the screenshot application and doing it half-assed way? I am sure you can edit key bindings but that should not be that way. If you know of any other ways, let me know.
Read more