Mac os x & Ubuntu live CD..

B

bienwold

Registered
hi all,
i am in a sticky situation! my mac os x mini was working fine. i decided i would like to investigate ubuntu.

so i downloaded the ubuntu live cd iso and burned it onto a disk. next thing, i go to system preferences in mac os x and change the startup disk to be the ubuntu live cd. then i restarted my mac. the sytem booted straight into ubuntu via the live cd. so now i would like to get rid of ubuntu and stay with mac os x. i remove the ubuntu live cd and restart, hoping that it will boot directly back into mac os x... but it does'nt.

now i have the predicament, where nothing else works on my mac except the ubuntu live cd! i tried all the usual apple cmd options... tried to get at the open firmware... tried to boot from the leopard disk... all with no success. it does'nt recognise anything else.

also, when i do boot from the ubuntu live cd, the ubuntu welcome screen starts with a number of options, however i can not select any...

any Help greatly appreciated.
bien.
 
Boot with the mouse button held down. That will eject the Ubuntu Live CD.

Then, reboot again and hold down the option key... that will present you with a menu of bootable devices. Select your Mac OS X hard drive and you should be good.

After Mac OS X boots successfully, go into the Startup Disk preference pane and re-select your Mac OS X volume.
 
unfortnately i have tried that. but it does not recognise any of the usual cmd opt commands. infact it does'nt recognise anything except the ubuntu live cd. without the cd it says 'grub hard disk error'. i tried the os x disk without any look. i cant access the firware at all.
 
Ah... did you ever proceed with the installation of Ubuntu from the LiveCD? It sounds like GRUB (a Linux bootloader) got installed on your hard drive and is preventing the standard Apple bootloader from running.

Can you get the Ubuntu LiveCD out of the drive at all?
 
i think i did install grub on the external fw drive but it does'nt recognise the drive unless i boot using the ubuntu live cd.
 
when the mac boots i never see any sign of os x... no apple... no nothing... if i start using the cmd+opt+o+f it does nothing. like as if when i changed the startup disk initially in mac os x, after reboot, it continues to look for the ubuntu live cd, disregarding everything else.
 
cmd-opt-P-R

Open firmware does not exist for intels...
What do you see if you go to single user mode?
 
it does the same thing... my machine does not recognise any of the apple shortkey commands... i don't see any apple either!! please PRAM zap DOES NOT WORK!
 
or verbose or single user modes ... they don't exist on my machine... i cannot even startup from the leopard install disk!!!
 
are you using an Apple keyboard in one of the main USB ports, and are you sure that the USB ports work?
 
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